Record wildfires in 2023 bumped Canada into the top four greenhouse gas-emitting countries in the world that year, according to a study Wednesday that also cast doubt on its forests’ future ability to capture and store significant amounts of CO2.
Last year saw a catastrophic number of wildfires across the country, with 15 million hectares — some 58,000 square miles, or about four percent of Canada’s total forest area — burned and more than 200,000 people displaced.
Looking at satellite data of smoke plumes from fires that burned from May to September of last year, researchers determined that 2,371 megatonnes of carbon dioxide and monoxide were released, pushing Canada’s ranking up from eleventh to fourth among the world’s top carbon emitters.
It put the country behind only China, the United States and India for 2023.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
