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WORLD / Europe
Greek forest fires could be CO2 threat
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-09-02 18:17
ATHENS - Greece's huge forest fires have been blamed by some on global
warming, but satellite images of smoke plumes drifting as far as Africa
prompt the question: are forests a major source of greenhouse gas?
A fire-fighting airplane drops water over a forest fire at Kalyvakia
village, in western Peloponnese, August 28, 2007. [Reuters]
Usually it is cars, factories and power stations that are most often
mentioned as sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas which traps heat in
the atmosphere. Trees, considered the "lungs of the planet", soak the gas
up. But what if they burn?
"Global emissions from deforestation and the degradation of forests are
the second single source after coal," said Stefan Singer of WWF (the
World Wildlife Fund).
Every year 13 million hectares of the world's forests disappear -- an
area the size of Greece -- according to the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation which says deforestation accounts for 18 percent
of CO2 emissions.
Although paling in significance next to deforestation in the Amazon,
Congo and Indonesia, forest fires in the Mediterranean might also be a
net source of emissions, experts said.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and climatologists see forests
as carbon "sinks" -- places where large amounts of that element are
stored. When they burn, whether in forest fires or as logs in a stove, it
is released.
In the atmosphere, CO2 is the main gas which contributes to the
greenhouse effect -- trapping the earth's heat which would otherwise be
radiated into space.
The latest U.N. report on global warming says temperatures will rise by a
best estimate of 1.8 to 4.0 Celsius (3 to 7 Fahrenheit) this century and
sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres.
Cause and Effect
The resulting hotter, drier summers in countries like Greece could mean
forests are more frequently brought to the tinder-box conditions which
allowed fires to spread so devastatingly.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni said the summer's devastating
floods in Britain and the worst fires in Greek memory demonstrated
climate change was already happening.
"From that moment everyone understood that the phenomena caused by
climatic change need to be confronted with much more coordination and
speed from the EU," she told a news conference.
Scientists said it was too early to judge how much C02 was released by
the Greek fires which are the most intense in Europe in at least a decade
and have killed 63 people.
If the trees grow back, they will eventually reabsorb the CO2. "If not,
the fires will have contributed to greenhouse gas emissions," said Earl
Saxon of the Geneva-based World Conservation Union (IUCN).
Bakoyanni tried to allay fears that the scorched land would be used for
building. "We are determined that not the smallest piece of land will not
be reforested. Nobody will build on burnt land," she said.
Any net loss of CO2 would not count against Greece's legal obligation to
control greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Greece, was allowed to increase its emissions
by 25 percent over 1990 levels. Non man-made sources, such as wildfires
do not count.
The IUCN's Saxon said forests have a natural cycle of fires and regrowth
but that global warming could upset the balance. If hotter and drier
summers mean more frequent forest fires, that could well mean a net
emission of CO2.
"If they become more frequent, then vegetation doesn't have time to grow
back and the net effect is that you lose more carbon from the eco-system
than the eco-system can recapture before the next fire."
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