2023: The Year Canadian Wildfires Outpaced Fossil Fuel Emissions

Recent research reveals that Canadian wildfires in 2023 emitted more carbon dioxide than India's fossil fuel consumption. This catastrophic event affected global air quality, worsened by climate change. Such fires may become more frequent as the planet continues to warm.

Canadian wildfires in 2023 pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than India's fossil fuel consumption, scientists have found. The fires set ablaze an area of forest larger than West Virginia and released 3.28 billion tons of CO2, according to new research.

World Resources Institute scientists, in collaboration with the University of Maryland, noted that these fires produced nearly four times the carbon emissions of annual airplane travel. The amount of CO2 released is comparable to emissions from 647 million cars per year.

Lead author James MacCarthy insisted that the scale of these emissions has a global impact, emphasizing that climate change played a significant role in escalating the intensity and frequency of such catastrophic fires. Additional studies highlight severe health implications and extensive global tree cover loss.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)