this is dr bonnie waring...ot plant our way out of the carbon crisis with business—as—usual emission scenarios. ..or, as dr kate hardwick at kew gardens in london notes: the risk here is that the benefit of new trees is overstated. there are other risks too — of greenwashing, of damage to ecosystems, of trees distracting from emissions cuts. let's look at all of this, starting with the crucial role that trees play. there are an estimated three trillion trees in the world and they absorb carbon from the air and, crucially, store it. that's one of the reasons why deforestation has been a focus at cop26. bear in mind, in the last 10,000 years a third of the world's forests have been lost. half of that was in the last century. and if you want to slow global warming, fewer trees doesn't help, and so two policies are being adopted. one is to stop deforestation. the united states will help the world deliver on our shared goal of halting natural forest loss and restoring at least an additional 200 million hectares of fo

this is dr bonnie waring.sphere and actually store it within their woody biomass. that's one of the reasons why deforestation has been a focus at cop26. bear in mind, the last 10,000 years, a third of the world's forests have been lost. half of that was in the last century. and if you want to slow global warming, fewer trees doesn't help, and so two policies are being adopted. one is to stop deforestation. the united states will help the world deliver on our shared goal of halting natural forest lost and restoring at least an additional 200 million hectares of forest and other ecosystems by the year 2030. and then the second policy looks to address that forest loss. the commitment yesterday was to sort out deforestation within ten years. in that time, some 70 million hectares of forest will have been disappeared, which is horrendous. what are we going to do to put that back? so it's not only stopping the deforestation, it's reforesting as well. planting trees — as china is doing here — is the second part of th

this is dr bonnie waring...ing lots of trees doesn't necessarily mean you end up with more trees. forrest fleischman is a leading expert on mass tree planting. back in september, he tweeted: . that's right — almost no impact. and if that's india, then look at turkey. in 2019, a un press release told us that turkey had set a new world record by planting 11 million saplings in three hours. a few weeks later, the guardian reported up to 90% of the saplings were thought to be dead. just planting trees isn't enough. there are a number of reasons for this. first of all, saplings are vulnerable. around a quarter will die young. second, it takes 20—30 years before a tree will draw significant amounts of carbon dioxide. third, the trees need thinning. without space, a new forest won't thrive. and fourth, if trees die and rot, all of that stored carbon will be released. but even if you do manage a new forest well, there's another issue. this is dr kate hardwick. the point being even if you replace lost forest, the new tre

this is dr bonnie waring.ly, store it. that's one of the reasons why deforestation has been a focus at cop26. bear in mind that in the last 10,000 years, a third of the world's forests have been lost. half of that was in the last century. and if you want to slow global warming, fewer trees doesn't help, and so two policies are being adopted. one is to stop deforestation. the united states will help the world deliver on our shared goal of halting natural forest loss and restoring at least an additional 200 million hectares of forest and other ecosystems by the year 2030. and then the second policy looks to address that forest loss. the commitment yesterday was to sort out deforestation within ten years. in that time, some 70 million hectares of forest will have been disappeared, which is horrendous. what are we going to do to put that back? so it's not only stopping the deforestation, it's reforesting as well. planting trees — as china is doing here — is the second part of the plan. but look beyond the bold ann