Its got the backing of big names: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is contributing an undisclosed amount of his own cash to the effort, while his company has committed itself to planting 100 million trees. First and foremost, 8 Billion Trees is a social enterprise- not a charity. Depending on soil types and climate, grasses often use less water to sequester soil carbon than trees do, and can do so faster and more effectively at higher temperatures. Nobodys against trees, said Benioff, adding, This is a time of action, not words. When trees are cut down, it is important that the carbon they contain is not released again into the atmosphere (Credit: Getty Images). Unfortunately, climate change is certainly a polarizing issue. The first issue is that trees are dark, at least compared to other things that might blanket the land, such as grass or snow. (2014, August 29). People who live alongside and depend on the river would be affected too, says Prakash Kashwan, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. A plantation site for the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Project in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Its dangerous to conflate restoration with adding trees, says Archibald, of Wits University, because often restoration means taking trees away.. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34560.pdf, 3Carbon Market Watch. (n.d.). Planting trees can help with both, he says, but only if we do it right. Planting trees on snowy terrain that once reflected the sun could even turn those places into dark patches that actually absorb heat. Between 2003 and 2016, lands under indigenous control had the smallest losses of carbon because the forest stayed intact and regrew in places that had been disturbed. In fact, some planting projects are clearly legitimate without them, because they have government contracts or otherwise. However, other reforestation experts are critical of Ungers findings. Thats going to have a bigger impact.. In other words, if we stopped cutting down trees we would cut our annual emissions by about 10%. If a project does not have additionality, it means that the carbon dioxide would have been removed from the atmosphere one way or another. The challenge will be finding ways to fit huge new forests into our societies in such a way that people accept them. You have to be careful where you do reforestation, says David Beerling of the University of Sheffield in the UK. But its not always that simple. One of the most widely-publicized is the Atlas of Forest and Landscape Restoration Opportunities published by the World Resources Institute (WRI), which delineates 2 billion hectares of what it terms degraded and deforested areas that it says are suitable for partial or full reforestation. However, many developing countries lack the scientific expertise to thoroughly assess and plan tree-planting programs, and many local communities dont have enough political power to determine the fate of their land, she says, so there is a real risk that politicians will push socially and environmentally damaging projects ahead regardless of expert concerns. Even Donald Trump, who has thrown a wrench into US and global efforts to tackle climate change, said the US would sign onto the campaign, called 1t.org. AI analysis of satellite images sees trees and shrubs where human eyes can't. That is a little over half our annual emissions, but they emphasise that many of the strategies they studied would not be cost-effective: a more plausible figure would be 11-15 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. As reported in Fast Company, about 165 billion packages are shipped in the US each year, with the cardboard used roughly equating to more than 1 billion trees (that's billion with a 'b').. Instead, it is a social enterprise with a strong focus on awareness campaigns which means their administrative costs are too high to be a charity. When we asked them about their decision to do this, they gave us a candid response: Exploring 'culture' in the broadest sense - from art, film and new media, to popular culture and social movements - in relation to contemporary issues such as globalisation, technology and social and cultural conflicts and identities. As a result, planting more trees typically makes the land darker. 8billiontrees.com Review - Scam Detector. China is on track to plant 35 million hectares (87 million acres) of trees in its northern arid areas by 2050 to make a so-called Great Green Wall the size of Germany. Death 8 APR 1905 - Amsterdam,North Holland . The UKs Royal Society came to similar conclusions in a 2018 report on greenhouse gas removal technologies. Tree-planting started really trending in 2019, when a study published in the journal Science caused a commotion. The primary way that any buyer can verify their purchased offsets is by ensuring the company uses a third-party verifier, or a validation and verification body (VVB). His work includes an award-winning film about eccentric birders in New York City and exposs of environmental crime throughout southern Africa. Hequestioned the transparency of the publicly funded budget that does not include transport and other costs. The Amazon now releases more carbon dioxide than it stores, in large part due to forest loss from mining, logging, agriculture, and fires. The UK government has planted millions of trees over the last decade, and has pledged another million between 2020 and 2024. This is certainly a valid concern to consider as youre shopping for carbon credits, especially since the recent reports revealing devastating truths about the carbon marketplaces dark side. And a Pakistani government investigation found that at least $3 million in Tree Tsunami funds were stolen, mostly by government officials and landowners involved in the program. Terrapass is one of many US carbon offset companies that have been under increasing scrutiny in recent months. The companys swift success fueled its growth into combatting other greenhouse gas (GHG) -emitting sectors like air travel and general energy consumption. We are aware of no other viable climate change solution that is quantitatively as large in terms of carbon drawdown, the authors from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich said in their comments published in Science last October. New trees can either be planted in regions that have been deforested (reforestation) or in places that have never had them before (afforestation). Not only might tree planting fail to reliably sequester carbon, trees can also heat the atmosphere more than many other habitat types. Nature has its own mechanism for planting trees and you do not need to plant and look after them," the former forestry official said. It would be better to restore species-rich forests, he says. Trees With Blue Leaves (Blue Pine Tree Guide: Locations, Species, Growing Instructions) Most trees have green leaves because of a substance called chlorophyll. 4,374 talking about this. Even the UKs Daily Mail, a right-wing newspaper not known for its climate activism, has just launched a campaign encouraging all its readers to plant a tree. Additionality means that the offset project prevents a certain amount of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Science published six critiques of the paper, criticizing its methods and results, and the Crowther Lab was forced to issue corrections. This finding has had immediate, fierce pushback from other climate scientists. Protecting existing forests and planting new ones are surely good things to do. This implies natural climate solutions could mop up about 30% of the CO2 we need to deal with every year. Instead of this costly project, the government should have targeted deforestation with strict administrative measures, the senior government official said. Hassan Abbas, an expert in environmental affairs, says that the plan to plant ten billion trees is being executed without any proper planning. In particular, last year one research group claimed we can plant a trillion extra trees and remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide currently in the air. They still think forests play a role in solving the climate crisis their skepticism mostly centers around efforts to plant trees in places they werent before, or to plant large swaths of a single species to essentially create tree plantations instead of real forests. The study also looked at regions that were best able to stop that from happening, and found that indigenous territories had the best success rates. A review paper published in Science last year shows that these threats, although significant and intensifying, arent always well understood and are difficult to compensate for. Using powerful supercomputers and machine learning algorithms, the team mapped the crown diameter - the width of a tree when viewed from above - of more than 1.8 billion trees across an area of more than 500,000 square miles, or 1,300,000 square kilometers. Criticism has also been leveled at the project for impeding on land used for pasture. How healthy are India's 1.4 billion people? Everyone [in restoration] wants to do good. We want to protect and help Earth by planting and saving over 8 billion trees. Gujjars lost access to large grazing areas and were forced to sell their animals, abandon their traditional way of life, and seek low-paying jobs in distant cities. That means we must also find ways to actively remove CO2 from the air. "In my area people are being encouraged to plant trees which would help prevent natural disasters as well as providing a healthy environment," she told DW. We can find the places that are not doing well, or as well as expected, and learn from them, too.. The initiative reached its commitment target early and now aims for 350 million hectares by 2030, and it has generated many offshoots and subsidiary programs. The Time magazine owner told everyone he could about the research: chief executives, friends and world leaders, even convincing climate sceptic Donald Trump to back the WEF initiative with a multibillion tree commitment. Similar conflicts over land use exist in all countries. Since the project has no substantial value, this renders the sold carbon credits useless. It gives the impression of plantations everywhere. For the world to win in the fight against climate change, the best carbon offset providers like Terrapass have the potential to be a strong contender with tree planting offset options, as long as they remain transparent and provide real, positive ecological change that can be measured in the carbon offset marketplace. Fossil fuel colossus Shell says that 700 million hectares of forest must be planted this century to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees C an area just smaller than Brazil. So how much can trees really help us solve our climate problem? Microplastics Are Filling the Skies. In this case, it merely leaked carbon dioxide to foreign locations. Read more. Grasslands, especially waterlogged grasslands, can be shown to hold much more carbon than tree-covered landscapes if subsurface carbon is included in estimates, says Archibald. I hate that people keep asking me: where are you going to plant these trillion trees? Crowther says. The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has made a film arguing for extra protections for the worlds forests, and for the replanting of those that have been cut down. You can find a list of approved VVBs from several authorities like the American Carbon Registry and Verra.6. The reports authors state, Our analysis of crediting errors demonstrates that a large fraction of the credits in the program do not reflect real climate benefits. This means that the state overestimated its offsets by a staggering 30 million tCO2e. Once theres transparency across the whole system, everyone can call you out. All Rights Reserved, By submitting your email, you agree to our. The Pakistani government's plan to plant 10 billion trees has garnered national and international praise. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features, Forests are not renewable: the felling of Swedens ancient trees, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Thomas Crowther: We messed up the communications so badly., Ive never said we should plant a trillion trees: what ecopreneur Thomas Crowther did next, homas Crowther understands more than most the danger of simple, optimistic messages about combating the climate crisis. The researchers warn, Rather than improve forest management to store additional carbon dioxide, ecological and statistical flaws in Californias offsets program create incentives to generate credits that do not reflect real climate benefits.. The official criticized the lack of accountability and said that a number of people close to the chambers of power have set up nurseries from which the government buys the trees for planting. In this case, the project isnt making a difference since the carbon dioxide can and will be offset without it. Organizers of the Cauvery tree-planting project have said the criticism against it is "a baseless opinion that contains blatant untruths and loose comments with no backing in facts." It says the. Last month, a global review of tree-planting initiatives in the tropics and subtropics since 1961 found that while dozens of organisations reported planting a total of 1.4 billion trees, just 18% mentioned monitoring and only 5% measured survival rates. The underlying problem is that our society is releasing greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), that are warming the Earths climate to levels we have never experienced before. If successful, the platform could help move away from the carbon in, carbon out logic underlying many conservation projects. But even as the arboreal campaigns have grown, dozens of scientists have warned that planting all those trees could potentially cause more harm than good. The Pakistani government claims to have already planted over a billion trees as part of its ambitious plan, as well as having created around 85,000 jobs. Tree planting is not an alternative to mitigation.. In India, leading environmental groups opposed a project to plant 2 billion trees in the Cauvery river basin supported by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Tree-planting critics have pointed out that in some countries there is an inherent conflict between using land for trees and using it for agriculture to feed growing populations. 2:15 p.m. EST MR PRICE: Good afternoon. Are Huge Tree Planting Projects More Hype than Solution? As the trees grow they pull in CO2 through their leaves and convert it into carbohydrates, which they use to grow. "They have not appointed sufficient staff to look after these trees and who will look after them in hilly areas and desert regions anyway?". Environmentalist Sitara Parveen from the mountainous Hunza region of northern Pakistan is happy about the move. For humans and wildlifes sake, verifying forestry carbon offsets is a non-negotiable step. Everyone with a smartphone will be able to show where their purchases came from, says Crowther. "Provision of solar geysers and cooking stoves, and a restriction on tree felling in northern and northwestern areas could help a lot," he said. There are also deeper problems, because trees have more than one way to affect the climate. The repeated assessment of soil carbon stocks is currently too time-consuming and expensive to use at the scale that would be required to verify stocks for carbon credits. So, what exactly is Terrapasss place in the carbon offset marketplace? They do not even know these terminologies, let alone understand the real causes that are destroying our environment," Abbas said. Once we know that, then we can start targeting our questions: are those places recovering trees faster than places where theres not a restoration project? He takes full responsibility for the failures, and, with a team of researchers, has been re-doing the analysis with a different approach. So we, as scientists who disagree, are now working to identify valuable ecosystems where planting trees would be a bad idea.. a film arguing for extra protections for the worlds forests, The UK government has planted millions of trees over the last decade, in 2016 one Indian state planted 50 million trees in one day, Ethiopia claimed to have planted 350 million in a day, a campaign encouraging all its readers to plant a tree, remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide currently in the air, the global total of 41 billion tonnes of CO2, one of the most effective carbon drawdown solutions to date, Crowther's team published an extensive correction, the best place to plant new trees is the tropics, we have created a cooling effect that slightly offset the warming from greenhouse gas emissions, a more plausible figure would be 11-15 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, natural climate solutions could mop up about 30% of the CO2 we need to deal with every year, a 2018 report on greenhouse gas removal technologies, planting trees in dry areas can cause water scarcity because they suck up so much, enabling more plant growth and therefore more carbon storage, planting rich new forests can boost local biodiversity, Similar conflicts over land use exist in all countries. For . Planting trees can play a part in reducing carbon in the atmosphere but it cannot reverse global warming on its own (Credit: Getty Images). The buzz generated by big international campaigns can give prestige to projects that have been rejected on the ground. These are significant numbers. The criticism hit home and, in May 2020,Crowther's team published an extensive correction, in which they admitted that some of their headline claims were "incorrect" and that the data contained "errors". The researchers determined this area by mapping land with sufficient rainfall to support trees, but that is not currently occupied by forests, agriculture, or urban areas. "I have seen the planting of thousands of trees in my own area," she said. Will they be limited by nutrient availability or increased fire or increased drought? Similarly, planting trees in dry areas can cause water scarcity because they suck up so much as China has discovered. During the 2019 election, Justin Trudeau promised Sally Archibald, an ecologist at Wits University in South Africa, says that planting enthusiasts often overlook the fact that people are using all this land that everyone thinks is available for planting trees. Ive never in my life said we should plant a trillion trees. As an added assurance, buyers can visit the. That green pigment is responsible for and is extremely efficient at capturing and converting light rays into energy and food for the trees. Barend 'Abraham' COZIJN. Smart and Archibald say that we should be looking less at trees and forests and more under the literal surface for carbon storage solutions, because in many parts of the world, far more carbon is held in the soil than in aboveground biomass. His lab has about 30 staff and an in-house public relations unit, and Crowther himself speaks on high-profile stages like TED and has access to wealthy businesspeople and top politicians. The other thing trees do is emit volatile chemicals into the air. Restoring these forests is crucial to preserving life as we know it. Forest Monitoring, Land Use & Deforestation Trends | Global Forest Watch. For Law, it is one of the best estimates published to date. The implications go beyond the states borders, affecting many well-known organizations in the offsets industry. (2021, June 15). The study also considered planting trees on savannas and grasslands, where planting non-native trees could cause problems for local species. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Several ecologists were outraged that forest restoration was framed as the most effective climate change solution to date, arguing that it was a dangerously misleading distraction from the urgency of cutting fossil fuel emissions. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from: https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2014/08/29/carbon-leakage/, 4G Badgley, J Freeman, J Hamman, B Haya, A T Trugman, W R L Anderegg, D Cullenward (2021). Systematic over-crediting of forest offsets. CarbonPlan. 8 Billion Trees was born on November 10th, 2018. "One of the factors leading to fire in various parts of the world is the elimination of grazing areas, which helps prevent such catastrophes," he said. (2019, July 5). Crowther says Restor is his lifes vision, mapping the latest data and thousands of conservation projects. Retrieved July 16, 2021, from https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/global/?category=summary&dashboard, 10Global Footprint Network. Carbon leakage. The brutal maths of climate change is that, as long as emissions are above zero, the world will continue to warm. Glossary. Sign up for the E360 Newsletter . Areas that are now used for farming such as rearing sheep on hill country can be difficult to reforest (Credit: Getty Images), The real uncertainties are not scientific, but socio-political. He is credited as an inspiration for the WEFs 1t.org project and sits on its advisory council. April8,2021, In late January, the multibillionaire Elon Musk took to Twitter and abruptly announced, Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology. A study published in July 2019, led by Thomas Crowther of ETH-Zurich in Switzerland, estimated the world has room for an extra 0.9. Forest carbon markets: Potential and drawbacks (RL34560). Benioff views Crowther as a Steve Jobs of ecology, an ecopreneur who is using bold research to shine a light on natures potential to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. The idea is everywhere. By selling them upfront, California officials severely bloated their numbers.