Would planting enough trees reduce the CO2 in our atmosphere?
Yes it would… if it were done correctly. As I’ve said on many occasions, I don’t think the way forward in tackling climate change is through financial penalties and the imposition of restrictions and regulations. I think we should all do what we reasonably can to reduce the effects and then address the remaining emissions by the application of a combination of biological, scientific and technological methods. Planting the right tree in the right place will sequester about 30kg of CO2 a year. Unfortunately, in 2009 we emitted 32 trillion kg of CO2 and the equivalent of an additional 13 trillion kg of CO2 in the form of other greenhouse gases (CO2e). Natural processes will remove 7% of these gases, the remaining 93% will accumulate in the atmosphere for the foreseeable future (average atmospheric residency period of the GHG’s is 85 years). In order to address the issue of global warming through the planting of trees would require the planting of more than one trillion trees, this works
