• Question: How much trees do we need to plant to stop climate change

    Asked by Oscar to Connor on 12 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Connor McGookin

      Connor McGookin answered on 12 Mar 2020:


      Lots!
      On average a tree will suck in 25 kg of CO2 per year, which over a life span of 40 years would be 1000 kg or 1 ton. If we want to stay below 1.5 degrees temperature raise (considered safe zone), each of us has around 80 tons left to emit, so covering our lifetime would need 80 trees.

      To multiply that out by the number of people in the world would be 560 trillion trees. However, trees aren’t the only way to remove CO2, there are also cool devices that suck it out of the air and turn it into fuel – https://carbonengineering.com/

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