Turns Out Planting Billions Of Trees Is An Effective, Cheap Way To Fight Climate Change
And with our wide open spaces, Australia is particularly well-placed to help.
Most news about the climate crisis is an absolute bummer, but here’s a beacon of hope: a new study shows that planting billions of trees is a relatively cheap, effective way to combat climate change. And, as one of the top six countries with the most room for new trees, Australia really could make a big difference if it gets on board.
Scientists have had a look at how much free land there is in the world to support new forests. According to new research published in Science journal yesterday, it turns out there’s space to support more than a trillion additional trees, all without impinging on urban areas or land we currently use for agriculture.
That total space for new trees is around 0.9 billion hectares, the equivalent of covering the entirety of the United States in trees. Unlike simply covering the entire United States in trees, however, the 0.9 billion hectares the scientists identified only includes areas where native trees would grow naturally — the idea here is to restore and grow forests, rather than just planting a bunch of trees and hoping for the best.
If we planted all those trees, the researchers estimate that they would capture around 200 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by the time they reached maturity, in 50-100 years. That would help reduce the carbon in the atmosphere by about a quarter, as well as help protect biodiversity, improve water quality and prevent erosion.
As for the potential cost of these new forests, it’s not cheap, but it’s also much, much more affordable than most other actions with the potential to have a big impact on climate change. One of the study’s lead authors estimated the cost at around $300 billion — to put that in context; the Australian government spent half that amount yesterday on widely criticised tax cuts.
Planting trees alone isn’t enough to beat the climate crisis, of course. A plan like this requires us also to keep cutting emissions (there’s only so much carbon these trees can capture from the atmosphere, so we don’t want to be adding more), and also requires that we reverse current, devastating trends of deforestation.
Every 30 seconds a football pitch sized area of Amazon rain-forest is removed at a rate of 14 trees per second. This animation by @neilrkaye shows this process at real time. Source: https://t.co/myazpomy2a pic.twitter.com/IsoVa6bZT8
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) July 4, 2019
And to be clear, while it doesn’t hurt for individuals to go out and plant trees in their backyards, what we need to make this plan work is a coordinated, global approach to reforest areas with native trees, protecting biodiversity.
Still, the study suggests that tree planting could be a relatively cheap, incredibly effective way to begin combatting climate change. It’s also one way that Australia could have a significant impact because as the study points out, we’re one of the top six countries with the most room for new forests.
You can read more about the study over at The Guardian, or if you’re a really big nerd, you can find the full study here. Maybe send these links to your local MP, if you have some free time today.
