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A GIANT CARBON SHIELD
The Boreal Forest serves as a giant shield in the fight against climate change. It captures and stores enormous amounts of carbon, preventing it from escaping into the atmosphere and intensifying climate change. The Boreal Forest in Canada alone holds about 12 percent of the world’s land-based carbon reserves. That's equivalent of up to 36 years of global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
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Most forests store carbon in living plants, but the boreal in Canada holds up to 95 percent of its carbon riches in soil, peatlands and permafrost—features that can accumulate and hold carbon over the course of thousands of years.
This long-term storage capacity is enormous. The amount of carbon buried deep below the boreal surface is roughly equivalent to at least 70 years of annual emissions from China, the world’s largest polluting nation, and more than 110 years of annual emissions from the United States, the second largest polluter.
When industrial projects dig deep into soil and muskeg, they can release thousand-year-old carbon reservoirs into the atmosphere in bursts. Conserving the boreal keeps these carbon riches in place and helps protect against the threat of unchecked climate change.
How Big is Canada's Boreal Forest?
The Boreal Forest in Canada is the largest intact forest left on Earth, home to sweeping landscapes unbroken by roads or other development. How big is it? Check out the video for more.
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