this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Environment
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As a Canadian it appears the wildfires are about to get worse anyway thanks to climate change.
I know we have to do better but to play Canuck devil's advocate, we are limiting the artificial removal of old-growth forest which is a human choice whereas wildfires aren't our choice (except in the cases of arson and controlled burns).
Landfills, papermills, mining operations, gas flaring and other industries all release emissions that I think are not all accounted for. That's why satellite imagery can get better net numbers over an estimation given by each individual organization.
To put some perspective, here in Eastern Europe many people are actually happy that we have light winters and less rain throughout the year. I would even say that global warming acutally makes this place more habitable (shortsighted, of course). EU is trying to push legislation to urge its state members for greener technologies, etc., however I personally think that the fact that it's not affected as bad as equatorial countries makes their moves not as radical as thhey should be.
The most affected are probably countries nearer equator - most of them poor countries which don't have that much impact on global politics. However, as you mentioned Canada, don't take me wrong, but the fact that global climate change touches rich and developed countries such as Canada, Australia etc., in my opinion is a good thing at current situation. Why? Because these are the countries that have global political power and the worse situation gets, the more they'll push towards saving the climate. No one will listen to poor countries.
True, but I think the argument is that if we're not including natural carbon sources, we shouldn't be including natural carbon sinks either. If we're counting old growth forests left alone as part of a carbon credit, they it follows that we should include forest fires as a carbon debit. That or leave both off the table and just look at artificial sources and sinks for net emissions.
Absolutely I understand the argument, I am simply presenting Canada's justification to account in a way that's described as cheating. Which I don't think is entirely correct but also is not completely illogical either.
From the Canadian government's perspective they want to reward efforts to maintain old growth forest as well as reducing emissions, but only so much can be done with natural forest fires, so they would rather not penalize anyone (or themselves 😏). The Paris agreement relies on actions per country to meet the targets with little enforcement which is why there is room for "creative" accounting.