Large-scale tree planting is often presented as a simple solution to conserving the environment and preventing climate change through carbon capture. But reforestation is more complicated than it looks.
“It's very easy to say, you're going to plant a tree,” says Erin Axelrod, the program director for Jonas Philanthropies' Trees for Climate Health initiative. “It's very, very complex, to actually follow that pledge through to the outcome of having a tree that is not only effective at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but also effective from the standpoint of doing all the other great things that trees can do.”
In recent years, massive reforestation efforts have included shockingly high numbers of tree-planting goals linked to them as a low-cost, high-impact solution to climate change. In 2019, Ethiopia claimed to have planted 350 million saplings in under 12 hours, breaking the world record for trees planted in a day. China is on course to plant 87 million acres of trees by 2050 to make a “Great Green Wall” the size of Germany. And just last year, the World Economic Forum began its 1t.org project, aiming to conserve, restore or grow one trillion trees by 2030.
