In addition to the CO2 that trees capture, they also help soil capture significant amounts of carbon. In the process of converting it into wood they release oxygen into the air. Trees- all plants, in fact-use the energy of sunlight, and through the process of photosynthesis they take carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and water from the ground. That said, large-scale CO2 removal through reforestation will help offset emissions from sectors like aviation where alternatives are not yet available, and perhaps help lower temperatures, he said. That means no new fossil fuel-using infrastructure can be built, and some existing power plants need to shut down early, based on a major study published in Nature on July 1. “The only way we can keep below 1.5C or 2C, is to stop emitting fossil fuels,” Peters says in an email. See how Icelandic trees are making a comeback in this short film by Euforgen. Meanwhile 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels are being added to the atmosphere every year, said Glen Peters, research director at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research. It could take more than a hundred years to add enough mature forest to get sufficient levels of carbon reduction. “If we act now, this could cut carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 25 percent, to levels last seen almost a century ago,” he says. That does not alter the vital importance of protecting existing forests and phasing out fossil fuels since new forests would take decades to mature, Crowther said in a statement. “Our study shows clearly that forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today,” said Tom Crowther, a researcher at ETH Zürich, and senior author of the study. Even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the area available for forest restoration could be reduced by a fifth by 2050 because it would be too warm for some tropical forests. However, the amount of suitable land area diminishes as global temperatures rise. Published today in Science, " The global tree restoration potential” report found that there is enough suitable land to increase the world’s forest cover by one-third without affecting existing cities or agriculture. An area the size of the United States could be restored as forests with the potential of erasing nearly 100 years of carbon emissions, according to the first ever study to determine how many trees the Earth could support.
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