DOTHAN, AL (WDNews) – A recent research is raising concerns about the fossil fuel industry’s preferred pollution-reduction strategy: planting trees to offset carbon emissions.
Researchers claim that the concept might be more detrimental than beneficial and that the mathematics simply don’t line up.
Dr. Alain Naef of ESSEC Business School, Dr. Nina Friggens, and Patrick Njeukam led the analysis, which concluded that growing a forest the size of all of North and Central America would be necessary to balance emissions from the 200 biggest fossil fuel businesses in the world. At the lowest estimate, that effort alone would cost an astounding $11 trillion.
“Our results are unambiguous,” Dr. Naef stated. Fossil fuels are less expensive to leave in the ground than to burn them and then attempt to repair the harm.
Alternative technologies, such as direct air capture, which extracts carbon from the atmosphere, were also examined by the researchers. However, they claim that option would cost more than seven times the global GDP each year.
And so many trees planted? In addition to occupying the same amount of area as all of the planet’s present-day farms, it might also contaminate water supplies, endanger wildlife, and disrupt the production of food.
The researchers emphasized that because of soil, climate, and water requirements, many places are just not suited for regeneration.
They wrote that disregarding these natural boundaries runs the danger of making matters worse rather than better.
The researchers conclude that there is no short cut. Instead of merely planting more trees, real climate progress entails reducing the extraction of fossil fuels.
