this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Environment
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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 ๐). The Paris agreement relies on actions per country to meet the targets with little enforcement which is why there is room for "creative" accounting.