Canada's raging wildfires lead to a surge in carbon emissions

The wildfires in Canada have caused a massive surge in global greenhouse gas emissions in the first seven months of this year, the EU's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said Aug. 3.

Accumulated carbon emissions from wildfires across Canada from Jan. 1 to July 31 totaled 290 million mt, data from EU's climate monitor showed.

"This is already more than double the previous record for the year as a whole and represents over 25% of the global total for 2023 to date," the statement said.

The intensity and numbers of wildfires have been unprecedented this year with Canada, Russia, China all experiencing severe ones.

From Australia to Canada, wildfires have become a regular occurrence, posing major risks to farmlands, grasslands and rangelands, and spreading towards cities and towns.

High intensity

The wildfires in Canada began in early-May in the province of Alberta, a key producer of oil and gas. But these fires spread further west in June, July and are still continuing.

They also led to a significant long-range transport of smoke which went all the way to the northeast of the US and some even crossed the Atlantic to reach Europe.

CAMS said it uses satellite observations of Fire radiative power (FRP), which is a measure of fire intensity and the heat of active fires, to estimate emissions of the different pollutants that make up the smoke.

By the end of July, over 120,000 km2 had been burned; nearly twice as much as the previous record of 71,060 km2 burned during the entire of 1995, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

As of Aug. 3, there were still 1,043 active wildfires raging in Canada, with 664 of those labeled as "out of control," latest data from CIFFC showed.

The Canadian wildfires also impacted oil and gas production, with several fields having to shut in output.

As hot and dry conditions persist across western Canada, wildfires still posed a huge risk to both firefighters and oil and gas producers looking to restore previously curtailed output.

El Niño

This comes as the World Meteorological Organization recently warned that global temperatures are likely to surge to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one year between 2023-2027 due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases and an El Niño event.

In a recent report, the UN agency warned that temperatures are likely to surge to record-high levels in the next five years, which will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment.

WMO has said a warming El Niño weather event is expected to develop in the coming months, which along with human-induced climate change will push global temperatures into uncharted territory.

El Niño is widely used to describe the warming of sea surface temperature that occurs every few years, typically concentrated in the central-east equatorial Pacific Ocean.