Carbon emissions from wildfires in boreal forests, the earth’s largest land biome and a significant carbon sink, spiked higher in 2021 than in any of the last 20 years, releasing 150% of their annual average from the preceding two decades. Wildfire emissions feed into a detrimental climate feedback loop, with the greenhouse gases they add to the atmosphere contributing to climate change, which fosters conditions for more frequent and extreme wildfires. Boreal forests store twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests, locked up in their soils and vegetation. The Canadian boreal alone stores twice as much carbon as the world’s oil reserves. Protection for boreal forests is needed.
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