Greece’s Wildfires Burning Through Its Natural Carbon Stores

(Bloomberg) -- Greece’s wildfires are burning through the country’s natural carbon sinks in the latest sign of how heat waves have the potential to undermine a key climate change solution.

More than 100 wildfires in the country have emitted over a million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere in July, the most in at least two decades, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which uses the European Union’s satellites to observe the earth. 

The spew of emissions is equivalent to about 5.5% of Greece’s annual output and at the same time is destroying forests that could help remove carbon naturally, according to Energy Institute Statistical Review.

While the emissions make up a small proportion of Greece’s overall pollution, it’s the latest sign of the dangers posed by increasingly extreme weather. The EU is currently working on a carbon certification scheme, which would help credit carbon removals, but one of the key challenges is how to make sure that the CO2 that is captured isn’t released back into the atmosphere.

(Updates total emissions data in third paragraph.)

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