Bushfires are considered neutral because the forest will eventually regrow and the trees and soil will eventually, perhaps after 50 or 100 years, absorb and sto

Bushfires are considered neutral because the forest will eventually regrow and the trees and soil will eventually, perhaps after 50 or 100 years, absorb and store the carbon emitted -- if they return to their former state. With increasing heat and drought, that seems unlikely. No idea about how back burning is accounted, or why that is different. It seems like it might return to neutrality far quicker. Guardian has been covering the Australia fires in some depth, here's a piece that expands on the above with much more from an Australian perspective. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/australias-bushfires-have-emitted-250m-tonnes-of-co2-almost-half-of-countrys-annual-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/australi... "Wood burning is turning into a major loophole in controlling carbon emissions". The UK's largest emitter, Drax is making claims to carbon neutrality, which exploits flaws in both UN and EU carbon accounting, and UK government's reporting of climate progress depends on that aircraft carrier sized loophole. A game many countries are joining in, or planning to. Here's a piece on that: https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-burning-counted-as-green-energy https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-b...