Myth: We can offset CO2 emissions by planting trees

A simple way to reduce our CO₂ emissions is to plant more trees. This will offset what we emit via the burning of fossil fuels.

Fact:

Even if we planted trees on every available hectare of land on the planet, those trees would only be able to absorb about half the CO₂ emissions from a single year of human activity. In reality, of course, there are economic and political reasons why we could not do this. Hence, reforestation on its own is not the solution to global warming. It is an important part of the solution, but not a replacement for the cuts we need to make in our emissions.