Could planting trees really make a difference against climate change, let alone end it? In this post I will show you that planting trees not only makes a huge difference in the fight against climate change, but it can end it. How? It's simple - trees are an incredible carbon sink that could buy humanity many decades, or even hundreds of years, of additional runway. My hope in writing this post is to show how simple the math is that shows that we can afford to be optimistic. The doom and gloom narrative grips the mainstream conversation on the subject but it doesn't have to. Things are far better than they appear on the surface, and I hope this post encourages you and brightens your mood on the basis of the evidence.
Trees are great carbon sinks. This is especially true for trees that live for hundreds of years. If more of these trees get planted, they'll become giant carbon sinks that will last for hundreds of years. That's more than enough time for co2 sequestration tech to mature and for renewables to scale. How great of a carbon sink could a tree be? Let's look at the numbers.
The average mature tree will capture 48 lbs (22 kg) of CO2 per year, according to:
That's neat, but how much does Earth emit each year and how many new trees would it take to capture the excess? According to charted data from Statista [3], in 2022 planet Earth emitted about 37.49 billion metric tons of CO2 from fossil fuels and industry.
Total emissions are not much higher than that, which is why I focus on the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels and industry. Some estimates I found when searching were in the 40 to 43 billion metric tons of CO2, but I'm primarily interested in the human activities driving CO2 emissions rather than natural events like volcanos or wildfires which are otherwise already accounted for by natural carbon sinks.
To capture 38 billion metric tons of CO2 with new trees would require:
\( \frac{38 \text{ billion metric tons}}{48 \text{ lbs (or 0.022 metric tons)}} = 1,744,907,500,000 \)
That's about 1.745 trillion new trees. If there were 1.745 trillion new trees, they'd capture all of the CO2 we're emitting from fossil fuels and industry each year.
But it's actually easier than that. This doesn't account for the natural carbon sinks that already capture a lot of CO2 each year. The 38 billion metric tons of CO2 being emitted are not all staying in the atmosphere. A part of that number is already being captured by natural carbon sinks like forests and oceans.
How much is already being captured and how much "airborne excess" is there?
According to the Global Carbon Project, around half of the global emissions remain in the atmosphere. [4] From this, let's estimate that about 20 billion metric tons remain in the atmosphere. What this means is that if we planted 1.75 trillion new trees, each year they'd capture ~2x the amount of airborne excess CO2. This would begin to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
870 billion new trees would be sufficient to capture the airborne excess. But is there enough space?
A 2019 study [5] found that there is enough space available for 1.2 trillion new native trees. That many trees is already more than enough to capture the airborne excess CO2 each year.
In other words, there is already enough land available to begin reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by planting new trees there. These could be native saplings as well, bringing an additional benefit of habitat restoration for native species of both flora and fauna, diversifying the face of the Earth again and making it even more beautiful than it already is.
We could also increase the amount of land available for trees and plants by being more efficient with farmland usage, investing in vertical farms, restoring brownfield land, being more efficient with industrial land, and smarter city planning. One estimate I found said we could restore 350 million hectares by 2030. [6]
To put that into perspective, the amount of land needed to plant 1.2 trillion new saplings as mentioned by that 2019 study is 900 million hectares. So an additional 350 million hectares could result in an additional 450 billion trees planted, which puts us very close to the 1.75 trillion new trees needed to capture *all* of the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels and industry rather than just the airborne excess CO2.
But won't CO2 emissions increase over time?
Earth is slated to hit peak CO2 emissions globally in the 2020s or 2030s at the latest. The current projections are that we will reach global peak co2 emissions from energy in 2025. [7]
If things were to continue the way they have until we hit the 2030s, we could reasonably expect that the increase per year would mirror what we have seen in the last decade. According to that Statisa chart, 10 years ago Earth was emitting 35 billion metric tons of CO2 from energy and industry versus the 38 billion metric tons recorded in the most recent year. At that rate, if the peak was achieved not in 2025 but in 2033 instead, an additional ten years of growth in CO2 emissions would put us at 41 billion metric tons. That peak would still produce less airborne excess CO2 than is being captured by these trees if they get planted.
This is incredible news. 2025 is right around the corner, and if we can lean into the trend by planting a lot of trees then 2025 could be the year when we reach peak CO2 and also begin constructing the largest CO2 sink ever built by humans. It could end up being the beginning of rapid reductions in airborne CO2 to the extent that in 2027 or 2028 atmospheric CO2 begins to decline as trees reach maturity.
This post doesn't even get into how fast renewables have progressed. They've made more progress than anyone expected and are still advancing at breakneck speed. There is also fusion to be excited for. Electric vehicles are making incredible progress. Agriculture and particularly vertical farms are really exciting. Everywhere I look there is positive news that shows that climate change apocalypse has been cancelled. I will write a follow-up post to add more details and to address these areas, as well as any feedback received on this post, in the near future.
But until then, be happy and optimistic. Things are better than the mainstream narrative might suggest, especially if you have fallen victim to climate news doom-scrolling. There is a lot that individuals can do and all of the big system-wide moves are looking really good and promising right now as of 2023. We shouldn't rest on our laurels and think we don't have more work to do, but climate alarmism has no place in individual headspace.
Fear should not be stunting anyone's mood or outlook on life, especially not if you're young and impressionable.
You can donate to organizations like the National Forest Foundation, where $1 can plant 1 tree. [9] There are other organizations that plant trees around the world as well. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to identify additional options. You can also check out logtrees if you want to plant your own tree and supply Proof of Work for participation in leaderboards, metrics, achievements, and upcoming games and rewards.
If you want to contribute by planting your own tree, consider providing Proof of Work via logtrees.com so that your tree becomes part of the logtrees Treemap . The goal behind logtrees is to make tree planting fun via some friendly competition at the local and national level, with leaderboards, metrics, achievements, and upcoming games and incentives for those who supply Proof of Work for their tree-related activities.
logtrees also intends to support planting trees on behalf of people who would like to plant one but don't have a place where to plant. I'm building a feature to facilitate that because I want everyone to be able to contribute towards building the Treemap if they want to, even if they live in a big city or don't have the terrain or weather needed for planting a tree. If you're interested in learning more about this once logtrees launches this feature, join the waitlist and you'll receive an email when the next batch of features is ready!
Please feel free to email me at dany@logtrees.com, thanks for the feedback!