Millions of acres of carbon credits forests catch on fire in Oregon and California

buy carbon credits they said, shave the planet they said

nice carbon credits you got here, be a real shame if they... caught on fire!



Washington: Wildfires raging across the US west coast are burning forests used by governments and global corporations to offset their carbon emissions in a double blow to tackling climate change.

The US is on track for a record-breaking wildfire season, with 100 large blazes burning in 14 states.

One of the largest is the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, which has destroyed more than 162,000 hectares since it began in early July. Alarmingly, the flames are thought to have spread through at least a fifth of the forests that had been set aside for carbon offsets in the region, including a sizeable portion of Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio for the year.

Carbon offset projects run by the state of California and a forestry project in Washington used by BP are also ablaze. The programmes are a popular option for corporations with ambitious climate targets as they allow companies to reduce their carbon footprint by counterbalancing their emissions against the investments in carbon-reducing projects.

Companies can purchase “credits” from qualifying projects, with each credit equating to a tonne of carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere. But the extreme weather conditions causing increasingly ferocious wildfires have raised questions about the long-term viability of the schemes.

The nation’s largest current blaze – the Dixie Fire – reached around 175,000 hectares in size as it spread across northern California on Saturday AEST.

Among its casualties was Greenville, a Gold Rush-era town in the Sierra Nevada which lost 100 homes and much of its century-old downtown.

Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest, said the region was witnessing “truly frightening fire behaviour”. He added: “We really are in uncharted territory.”

The fires have destroyed communities and set the stage for a calamitous fire season for the western US, following record heatwaves and droughts.

Microsoft, a long-time buyer of the carbon offset market, said some of its purchases were among those “now burning”.

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