Canada’s unprecedented wildfires in 2023 have catapulted the country into the world’s top four emitters of greenhouse gases and global warming, a scientific paper published Wednesday revealed.

Last year, a large number of long-lasting fires broke out in the country, which resulted in 150 million hectares – 4% of the total forest area – turning into landslides and forcing more than 200,000 people to urgently evacuate their homes.

Examining satellite data on the presence of CO2 in the smoke plumes of fires that lasted from May to September 2023, scientists estimated that 2,371 megatons of CO2 and carbon monoxide (CO) were released.

Canada thus rose from eleventh to fourth place in the world ranking in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, behind only China, the US and India.

The future ability of the country’s forests to capture CO2 is in doubt

The authors of the study warn that the hot and dry weather that favored the occurrence of fires will become the norm by 2050 and may lead to an “increase” in fires. This “raises the question of whether potentially more frequent and intense fires in the coming decades will reduce the capacity of Canadian forests to act as CO2 sinks,” Brendan Byrne, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, told AFP.

The Canadian boreal forests, a vast expanse from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, store enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. Generally, only when the vegetation of burned forests regenerates, after decades, is the released CO2 reabsorbed.

The increase in the size and number of fires, linked to droughts in some areas, may slow forest regeneration and thus “carbon sequestration”, according to the study.

Canada will need to reduce the permitted level of emissions by burning fossil fuels in order to “offset the reduction in the absorption of (dioxide) carbon by forests,” the text notes.

The Canadian government agreed as part of the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 45% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

Human activity has contributed to global warming over the past two decades. The frequency and intensity of extreme forest fires more than doubled worldwide, according to another study, published in June in the scientific journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Canada’s wildfire season hasn’t been as dire so far this year, but it has hit some areas hard, notably the tourist town of Jasper, which was partially destroyed in July.