evidence: Yes. Wildfires release carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG) that contribute to climate change. It is challenging to determine how much wildfire emissions alter the GHG concentrations in the atmosphere and contribute to anthropogenic climate change because wildfire emissions are part of the terrestrial carbon cycle. [...] Earth’s terrestrial carbon cycle transfers carbon between the land, ocean, and atmosphere. As part of the terrestrial carbon cycle, fire, plant respiration and decomposition are balanced by plant growth and other processes that take place over decades or centuries. When in balance, these biogenic CO2 emissions from fire and other sources are offset by biogenic CO2 sequestration, resulting in relatively minimal change in the total concentration of atmospheric CO2 that drives climate change. Emissions from fossil-fuel combustion are contributing to putting this cycle out of balance. They are also contributing to a negative feedback loop for California’s forests and lands: as CO2 emission accumulate in the atmosphere and California experiences more warming, extreme heat events, droughts, and invasive species, the risk and intensity of fires also increases, which in turn push the terrestrial carbon cycle further out of balance. [...] In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a Special Report that made it clear that limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require global carbon neutrality by 2045, and that carbon neutrality must include the sources and sinks from emissions from all sectors, including natural and working lands.