Planting trees has plenty of benefits, but this popular carbon-removal method alone can’t possibly counteract the planet-warming emissions caused by the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies. To do that, trees would have to cover the entire land mass of North and Central America, according to a study out Thursday.
Many respected climate scientists and institutions say removing carbon emissions — not just reducing them — is essential to tackling climate change. And trees remove carbon simply by “breathing.”
But crunching the numbers, researchers found that the trees’ collective ability to remove carbon through photosynthesis can’t stand up to the potential emissions from the fossil fuel reserves of the 200 largest oil, gas and coal fuel companies — there’s not enough available land on Earth to feasibly accomplish that.
Most of Russia is covered by Forests or Peatlands, which are actually far superior in carbon sequestering. All the coal that is burned used to be peat. Same is true for most of Canada, which is in about the same climate zone.
The last thing we need is more meddling with one of the areas that actually helps in carbon sequestering.