We Can’t Fix Climate Change Without Planting More Trees

Abstract

The latest report from the IPCC on 1.5⁰C shows that we need to do all we can to remove fossil fuels from our economy but we cannot make the necessary adjustment to reducing CO2 in the atmosphere unless we put much more carbon back into the landscape.

This needs more plant matter and more soil carbon – both mean more trees.

Globally there is still more carbon being depleted from the land rather than being regenerated.

This presentation will show how critical cities are to this agenda, both in the application of biophilic urbanism into every part of the city but also in ensuring the bioregion plants trees through carbon neutral programs. Carbon neutral can be a major source of funding for tree planting.

It is now clear how to remove coal and oil in power and urban transport through solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles thus contributing to resolving the climate emergency in the next 12-15 years.
But what do we do with the unsolved issues such as natural gas used in industrial heat, and oil used in aviation, long distance trucking and shipping?
It is unlikely they will find a reasonable solution in this critical period. Perhaps all these need to become carbon neutral while they keep using fossil fuels, thus giving them the chance to contribute during the carbon emergency of the next 12-15 years, and planting millions of trees their multiple benefits.

The new IPCC Report on Land, called in full ‘An IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems’ is available on this link:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/4.-SPM_Approved_Microsite_FINAL.pdf

The Land Report has been summarised for easy communication in two articles in The Conversation:

UN climate change report: land clearing and farming contribute a third of the world’s greenhouse gases

August 8, 2019 6.01pm AEST
Mark Howden – Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University

https://theconversation.com/un-climate-change-report-land-clearing-and-farming-contribute-a-third-of-the-worlds-greenhouse-gases-121551

New climate change report underscores the need to manage land for the short and long term

August 12, 2019 9.11pm AEST

Chris E. Forest – Professor of Climate Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University

https://theconversation.com/new-climate-change-report-underscores-the-need-to-manage-land-for-the-short-and-long-term-121716