I planted 3,500 trees back in 2018 and these should remove around 14 Tonnes of CO2 for each year they’re growing.
My trees cost under $2 per Tonne of CO2 removed. So why, in the MIT Technology Review should we pay $100 a tonne to remove CO2 by “greenhouse-gas sucking factories” and other tech solutions?
It’s simple – we need both:
✅ We need to plant 1 trillion plus trees today because there's plenty of deforested land and the cost is low - around $2 per Tonne of CO2 removed.
✅ But we also need mechanical solutions to succeed too – because there is so much CO2 to be removed.
✅ Because “even if we get carbon dioxide emissions all the way down to zero, the world will not cool back down; it will just stop warming up. The only way to permanently reverse warming is through carbon removal.”
✅ And over time the price of planting trees will go up, and the cost of mechanically removing CO2 should come down.
✅ And anyway the social cost of carbon is at least $51 per Tonne of CO2.
Of course we need to cut CO2 emissions first. This is useful: “as a simple rule of thumb, we should aim for a world where we reach net zero by cutting more than 90% of current emissions and removing less than 10%.”
And of course: “We should also avoid dubious carbon offsets and credits that don’t reliably and permanently draw down greenhouse gas.” Isn’t that what the 3 trillion trees on our planet are already doing today?
How many trees are needed to remove your Carbon Footprint?
#sustainability #climatechange #globalwarming #smallbusiness #NetZero #n0co2
Social Cost of Carbon is $51: https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/the-social-cost-of-carbon/