Highlights

• Governments and businesses globally have committed to plant more trees to offset human-caused GHG emissions from Earth’s atmosphere.
• The World Economic Forum launched the one Trillion trees programme to grow, restore and conserve plants across the world.
• Researchers and scientists say poorly design plantation projects could do more harm and may not address the main issue.

Governments and businesses all over the world have committed to plant more trees to offset human-caused emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. We have heard lot about how planting trees will protect our planet and reduce harmful gases.

According to an international research team, led by Jean-Francois Bastin of ETH-Zurich in Switzerland, Earth’s ecosystem holds around 3 trillion trees and could support more 900 million hectares (2.2 billion acres) of forest, which is 25% more forest area than we have now. This could reduce about 205 gigatons of carbon, decreasing atmospheric carbon by around 25%. However, these figures were highly criticized as unreliable and overhyped.

Amazon Rainforest is one of the largest carbon sinks, while providing home to various kinds of species and its vegetation is responsible for storing large amount of carbon emissions and help to mitigate climate change. Despite this, they are facing serious degradation and destruction.

The World Economic Forum, in January 2020 launched the one Trillion trees program to grow, restore and conserve plants across the world.

However, some scientists warned that a poorly design projects could do more harm if it does not address the main issue and such massive project should address a range of economic, scientific, social and political concerns. Different forests and plants sequester different amount of carbon.

Forest absorbs 16 billion metric tons of CO₂ annually on average. However forest also emitted around 8.1 billion tons of the gas back to the air and also deforestation and forest degradation are rapidly increasing.

Also read: How young climate change activists are fighting for good climate

Can planting trees solve climate change problem?

Over the last 200 years, greenhouse gases have increased the average temperature of the planet by around 1 degree Celsius. 

The world’s land based ecosystem and oceans absorbs around half of the carbon emissions and rest goes into atmosphere.  

According to scientists, only planting trees can’t solve climate change but when combined with well-throughout restoration of reducing carbon emissions and existing forests, it can play a significant role. Plants through Photosynthesis absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) and convert it into energy and sugars to grow. Carbon is them stored in their leaves, roots, branches and as well as in soil. The carbon remains stored in plants until the wood is burnt or decomposes. 

Planting trees would not help if trees are burnt or cut down for human needs, so biodiverse planting can help to address the climate change, but only when we reduce emissions and restore and protect existing forests.

Researchers are also working on negative emissions technologies to actively remove carbon from our atmosphere and many of these approaches are in developments to remove carbon directly from air and converting it into fuel.

Also read: Bushfires & wildfires- the venom to life on Earth 

Is forest restoration and Planting the same thing?

Planting refers to the act of planting trees in the ground and it can be consider as an element of forest restoration, if carried out judiciously.

However, Restoration refers to returning a forest ecosystem to a previous, healthy state. There are varieties of trees with different ages in a biodiverse natural forest. 

The forest regenerates naturally and support complex web of flora and fauna. Planting trees can be the part of degraded forest as long as indigenous forests are prioritized and there are extensive ranges of species to maintain its biodiversity.

Forest can be restored in many ways such as close-to-nature forestry, moving from clearcutting and planting monocultures to community forestry or setting aside land, with community support, to enable forest to regenerate on its own.

Also read: Efficacy of a net-zero target

What type of tree planting can do more harm than good?

The following types of tree plantation can cause more harm than benefits:

• Where existing biodiverse ecosystem are disrupted or destroyed
• Where without allowing the forest to mature, trees are planted over and again.
• Where there is no diversity in plant species which would be more climate and pest resilient
• Where trees are not suitable to the local condition and climate.
• Where there is poor project governance, which may lead to dead plantation.
• Lack of knowledge about ecosystem as it is really important for people living in them and the health of environment.
• Increase in soil and water pollution
• Where Local communities are not concerned or involved, resulting in disconnect from nature, livelihoods loss and land-grabs.

Also read: Take a look at top 10 global renewable energy stocks 

Bottom line

Government, communities and corporate are investing billions of dollars to reduce carbon emission by planting trees but the forest cover is not increasing.

If done correctly, planting might give researchers time to develop some of carbon capture technologies such as direct air capture, Bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, Geologic sequestration and Carbon mineralization