Source:
https://scmp.com/news/asia/article/1870619/shock-assessment-southeast-asia-fires-are-producing-more-greenhouse-gas
Asia

Shock assessment: Indonesian fires are producing more greenhouse gas than the United States

For nearly two months, thousands of fires caused by slash-and-burn farming have suffocated vast expanses of the region with smog.

Thick smoke rises as a fire burns in Indonesia's South Sumatra.

Indonesian forest and agricultural fires cloaking Southeast Asia in acrid haze are spewing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each day than all US economic activity, according to an environmental watchdog.

The shock assessment came as Jakarta said the number of blazes was increasing across the archipelago despite a multinational fire-fighting effort, and announced plans to deploy more water-bombing aircraft.

For nearly two months, thousands of fires caused by slash-and-burn farming have suffocated vast expanses of the region with smog. Much of the burning is in tropical peatlands rich in carbon but which are being drained and cleared at a rapid rate to make way for agriculture, particularly fast-expanding palm oil plantations.

The World Resources Institute said in a recent report that since early September carbon emissions from the fires had exceeded average US daily output on 26 out of 44 days.

The United States is the world's second-largest greenhouse gas source after China. The WRI, a US-based research organisation that focuses on environment and development issues, normally classifies Indonesia as the fifth-biggest emitter.

"The burning of tropical peatlands is so significant for greenhouse gas emissions because these areas store some of the highest quantities of carbon on Earth, accumulated over thousands of years," the WRI, which used findings from the Global Fire Emissions Database for the report, said.

The smog crisis is escalating as world leaders gear up for talks beginning next month in Paris on a climate rescue pact, which will seek to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

The fires and resulting region-wide blanket of smoke occur to varying degrees each year during the dry season as land is illegally cleared by burning, regularly angering Indonesia's smog-hit neighbours Malaysia and Singapore. Malaysia, which in recent weeks has repeatedly ordered school closures across several states as a health precaution, did so again yesterday for the third straight day as pollution levels climbed.

Popular Thai holiday islands have also been affected with the haze forcing several planes packed with beach-bound tourists to turn back.

Experts warn the current outbreak is on track to become the worst ever, exacerbated by bone-dry conditions caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The fires on the huge islands of Sumatra and Borneo are typically only brought under control with the onset of the rainy season.