Land-Based Carbon Offsets: False Hope?
Land-Based Carbon Offsets: False Hope? Forest and Soil Carbon Is Important, but Does Not Offset Fossil Fuel Emissions
Leading world climate change experts have thrown cold water on the idea that planting trees can offset carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
Professor Brendan Mackey of Griffith University Climate Change Response Program is the lead author of an international study involving researchers from Australia and the U.K. Their findings are reported in "Untangling the confusion around land carbon science and climate change mitigation policy," published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
"While protecting and restoring natural forests is part of the solution, the reality is that for all practical purposes fossil fuel CO2 emissions are irreversible," Professor Mackey said.
The findings highlight the urgent need for policy-makers worldwide to re-think the issue as many decision-makers, national and internationally, assume that fossil fuel emissions can be offset through sequestering carbon by planting trees and other land management practices.
There is still no practical way for humans to remove gigatonnes of carbon from the air. I guess we'll just have to wait for Mother Nature to do her thing over the next 100,000 years or more, at 1 ppm per millennium.