Climate-driven wildfires could cost Canada $2.1T by 2100

Climate-driven wildfires could cost Canada more than $2.1 trillion cumulatively over the 21st century if global warming reaches 3 to 4 C, according to a Simon Fraser University modelling study.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research and announced by SFU on Oct. 7, puts the annual cost of climate-driven wildfire impacts at $43 billion by the end of the century under that scenario. The university said it is among the first studies to put a price on projected Canadian wildfire activity driven by climate change.

The model counted the direct cost of wildfire suppression, net timber yield loss and lost nature-based recreation in Canada. It also counted global costs of wildfire carbon emissions, including crop losses, damage from sea-level rise and declines in human health worldwide. It simulated fire weather, vegetation growth, suppression, and lightning and human ignitions under three scenarios: warming of 2 C or less, 3 to 4 C, and 4 to 5 C.

“Societal and economic costs of wildfire are highly dependent on the actions that we take to mitigate climate change right now,” said Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, an assistant professor of resource and environmental management at SFU and the study’s lead author. “If we keep global warming to 2 C or less, wildfire impacts and costs will be similar to what we’ve experienced over recent decades.”

Kou-Giesbrecht said she does not expect warming of 4 to 5 C, largely because of green energy developments outside Canada, and called 3 to 4 C a more realistic worst case. She said the figures are likely conservative because the model left out wildfire-related health impacts, evacuations, infrastructure loss and economic disruption within Canada. It also did not account for single extreme events such as the record 2023 season, which forced more than 200 communities to evacuate and exposed millions of Canadians to hazardous air pollutants, SFU said.

The findings arrive as Canada’s emissions remain well short of the 2030 target, a gap the Canadian Climate Institute has attributed to policy rollbacks. A federal climate report earlier found projected annual losses of $35 billion, and researchers are now working on an AI model to map wildfire hazard faster. Our coverage of the youth climate trial in Vancouver and the UN finding that 1.5 C is out of reach covers the policy side.

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