If planting tree's mitigation potential is "large", then they're saying nothing on this list will make a dent. The math simply doesn't work because there aren't enough acres on earth to use trees to reverse global warming.
Carbon removal is a combination of several different scams on the public.
That is actually a good thing. Cut trees that turn into lumber sequester carbon dioxide in the form of building frames.
No one claimed this but you.
>Lots of carbon storage happens between them, not to mention how important they are for biodiversity.
Yes we know, it's almost like this subject deserves its own field of study [0][1].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forest_manageme...
Total CO2, from 1850 to 2019: 2400 gigatons (2.4×10^12 tons, ≈ 2.2 × total living biomass on Earth, ≈ 69 × total dry biomass on Earth (wolframalpha))
How many building frames are you planning to build?
A lot, lumber has all kinds of uses beyond framing as well.
"At this point, it's tempting to dismiss lumber as completely irrelevant to concerns about carbon emissions. But the authors show there are exceptions. In Canada, where timber is a major contributor to the economy, wood products end up sequestering 2.4% of its annual emissions, or over 30% of its industrial emissions. In Sweden, those numbers are 9% of the total emissions and over 70% of industrial emissions. So, when it comes to setting national emissions targets, there are countries where harvesting forests really matters." [0]
Thanks for making my point for me: this is a good thing.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/how-much-carbon-does...
>Even upping the total to 400 megatonnes, however, is not especially comforting given that our annual carbon emissions are well over 350 gigatonnes. "Even under a best-case scenario and when accounting for this gap," Johnston and Radeloff write, "the global potential of [wood products] as a carbon sink is minor and always less than 1 percent of emissions."
Less than 1 percent of yearly emissions. It's good there are countries where that percent is higher, but sadly when it comes to CO2 emissions, it's the global result that matters. We not only have to get to zero our current emissions, but we also have to bury back the historic CO2.
Yes, I know, I am the one who linked the article...
>Less than 1 percent of yearly emissions.
Indeed globally it's a small amount, but it's still a good thing as I originally stated QED. There are too many countries that strip mine their forests out and don't follow sustainable forestry.
It depends. The evidence is that Earth obviously reversed global warming in the past several times with vegetation alone. But it probably isn't helpful for the timeline that we humans need it on, e.g. in the next 20 years (and in the next century, if we're being very generous)
Actually decreasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be the work of many generations. There's a lot of things to do, but planting trees then tossing their carbon into deep holes and starting over won't hurt.
For reference, https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-ca...
If you combine that with looking at progress in the last decades or so, it allows for some optimism.
Right now, we just need to stop the bleeding and get to global net ~zero emissions with the tools we have (renewables, nuclear, carbon capture, etc.). It seems like we're on track to accomplish that at least some time this century.
By the time we've gotten there, direct air capture should be a relatively mature technology, and energy should be much more abundant between continued advancement on renewables and early iterations of commercial fusion. With any luck, we'll even have highly automated and scalable AI-driven manufacturing and infrastructure deployment capabilities to make a mass rollout of DAC relatively cheap. As long as we survive long enough with no major societal upheaval, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to restore the planet to preindustrial CO2 levels by some time next century, or (very optimistically) around the turn of this century.
It's not going to solve itself overnight, and climate change will get worse before it gets better, but I think we're basically doing the right things. Maybe in the meantime someone will figure out how to process landfills into fuel and mass produce microorganisms that feed on microplastics.
How much Coal China is using is a major one and they are adding renewables at a crazy fast pace. Even at China’s fairly abysmal capacity factors, when we are talking about 217 GW of solar in 2023 and their on pace to increase that by 35% in 2024, it adds up quickly.
Perhaps it's getting overlooked because it's too obvious or sounds too easy to work?