Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of (1) burning heather, and (2) depleted peat bogs, on the UK’s carbon emissions.

The Government’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory publishes an annual assessment of the greenhouse gas impacts of wildfire burning in grasslands, which includes heather moorland. The most recent inventory shows that in 2014 15.6 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (kt CO₂e) were emitted from wildfires on grasslands, including moorland, which represents around 0.003 % of UK greenhouse gas emissions. The inventory does not include estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from the controlled burning of heather moorlands as there are insufficient data.

The inventory assesses greenhouse gas emissions from peat bogs that have been cleared and drained for peat extraction. The most recent inventory shows that 379 kt CO₂e were emitted in 2014, which represents around 0.07 % of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. The inventory includes estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from improved grassland on drained organic soils, but due to a lack of data it does not assess emissions from semi-natural grassland and moorland on drained organic soils.