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This is the critical flaw in betting mostly on trees to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

To get to the now-unlikely target of +1.5°C by 2100, the need is on the order of 6 billion tons of CO2 to remove each year by 2050[1]. A mature tree can capture only around 22 kg a year[2], so removing 6 billion tons would require planting 270 billion trees each year. To get a sense of the magnitude of the effort, there are an estimated 3 trillion trees on Earth today; we'd need to plant just as many in only 11 years.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-ins...

[2] https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/forests-health-and-climat...



270B trees @22kg/year, right?

You cut them down each year and replant, or assume that there are no trees locking up 22kg CO2/year for more than 1 year?




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