Can we plant our way out of a climate catastrophe?

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Editor's note: The simple, one-word answer to that question is “No”. In a recent study published in Nature, researchers analysed a series of large-scale tree-planting programmes in north India and concluded that there is no evidence of such plantations offering substantial climate benefits or supporting livelihoods. But the world is brimming with tree-planting initiatives: the Bonn Challenge, Trees Forever, Trees for the Future, the Trillion Tree Campaign, the One Trillion Trees Initiative, the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami, Plant a Billion Trees, the list goes on and new additions are made every few months. Countries are dedicating valuable resources to planting millions of trees to compensate for the forests lost to development goals.  In July, the Uttar Pradesh government said it planted over 250 million saplings in a day, claiming that the state government has planted over one billion saplings since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state in 2017. From the Hindustan Times: “We took plantation as a campaign and planted 5.71 crore saplings in 2017, 11.77 crore saplings in 2018, nearly 23 crore in 2019, and despite Covid, …