All attempts to lower carbon levels in Canada could be compromised due to an unexpected cause: mountain pine beetles. Canadian researchers unveiled on Wednesday that the beetles are destroying the forests along the Rocky Mountain range, which interferes with the efforts to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2012, as Canada promised to do under the Kyoto protocol.

The study was led by Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service, who estimated this to be the worst outbreak in the past ten years. The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, Coleoptera: Curculionidea, Scolytinae) is a native insect of the pine forests of western North America that ravages forests across the continent and turns the situation critical when outbreaks occur.

The problem with the dying trees is that they are unable to consume carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and furthermore, when they start to decompose, they also start releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This means beetles are able to alter the carbon dioxide cycle in such ways that could affect climate change.

The current outbreak in British Columbia is on a higher scale than all other previous recorded outbreaks, the researchers noted. For a better understanding, they explained that the impacts of the beetle outbreak are equivalent to 75% of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all Canada during 1959-1999.

"This is the kind of feedback we're all very worried about in the carbon cycle — a warming planet leading to, in this case, an insect outbreak that increases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which can increase warming," said Andy Jacobson, a carbon cycle scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., as quoted by the Associated Press.

On a long term, the conclusions of the study are worrisome: forest fires are responsible for annually producing 27 megatons of carbon, while a beetle outbreak is capable of producing up to 20 megatons of carbon, which should clearly raise alarm signals. At the same time, climate change is already responsible for the magnitude of this outbreak, as it created favorable conditions for the beetles to spread, which makes Canada’s efforts to fight it even harder.

According to the Kyoto Protocol, 36 developed countries have to cut greenhouse emissions by 2012. Although the treaty will no longer be available after that date, another treaty will probably follow, as efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions intensify.