"Do We Need A Carbon Tax For California Wildfire’s CO2 Emissions?"

With all of the concern over climate change, emissions reduction from industry and transportation, there is one source of emissions that is currently getting a free pass – emissions from wildfires. California wildfires in 2020 were extraordinary, burning 4.4 million acres and spewing so much smoke that air quality has been affected thousands of miles away.

Sources of wildfire ignition:

Lightning strike
Unextinguished campfires
Lit cigarette butts
Improperly burned debris

Contributing factors to wildfires:

There are several contributing factors to wildfires, but only one in which we can be proactive.

Lack of forest management for thinning before forests become a tinder box
High summer temperatures
Severe drought

Consequently, we should evaluate ways to incent behavior to get the preferred end result: less dead wood in our forests to reduce combustible fuel to start and intensify a potential forest wildfire.

Wildfire CO₂ emissions:

From June through August 2021, California fires emitted twice as much CO₂ as during the same period last year, and far more than any other summer in nearly two decades, per the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service, a European Union-financed agency, which estimates emissions based on satellite measurements available since 2003. Over these three months, California fires released more than 75 million metric tons of CO₂, or about 0.23% of annual worldwide CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Overall, 2021 wildfires in the Western United States released 130 million tons of CO₂ or 0.4% of the emissions from fossil fuels.

In 2018, California wildfires emitted as much CO₂ as an entire year's worth of electricity demand in the state. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data estimated the 2018 wildfire season in California released emissions equivalent to roughly 68 million tons of CO₂, or about 15 percent of all California emissions, and it is on par with the annual emissions produced by generating enough electricity to power the entire state for a year. Wildfires are catastrophic in terms of dollars of destroyed property, but also for the environment and for the public's health.

How does the U.S. incent proper forest management to reduce the risk of wildfires, and lowering carbon emissions? Perhaps the time has come to tax states and federal agencies that do not take action to reduce forest CO₂ emissions as a way of creating a cleaner environment. We see a carbon tax for fossil fuels, why not a carbon tax for poor forest management by states and the federal government?

Per National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) factsheets, wildfires release large amounts of CO₂, black carbon, brown carbon, and ozone precursors into the atmosphere. This affects air quality due to the amount of volatile and semi-volatile organic materials and nitrogen oxides that form ozone and organic matter as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Wildfire emissions and downwind pollutants

Figure 2 demonstrates the key locations of U.S. wildfires, primarily in the western states.

Figure 2 - Key U.S. Wildfire Areas

Negative impact of Western wildfires:

There are a number of impacts of wildfires that endanger our lifestyle, from both an economic and environmental standpoint.

Increased CO₂ emissions
Smoke production, regional air quality
Smoke exposure
Eye and respiratory tract irritation
Increased hospital visits
Poor air quality thousands of miles east of flames
Increased PM2.5 (particle matter 2.5 microns)
Loss of vegetation, storm-water runoff erosion
Heavy metals from ash and soil infiltrating waterways

Summary:

To quote Smokey The Bear (see Figure 3), “Only you can prevent forest fires.” But by preventing forest fires, we can also reduce CO₂ emissions in tandem with CO₂ reductions from fossil fuel use to improve U.S. air quality. Providing economic disincentives/penalties for not managing our forest land to prevent wildfires is but one tool to lower CO₂ emissions for the U.S.

Figure 3 – Smokey’s Advice