Combined, the suggested “regreening of the planet” would be equivalent to halting all burning of oil worldwide, it said. Trees soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they burn or rot. Overall, better management of nature could avert 11.3bn tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year by 2030, the study said, equivalent to China’s current carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use. The Paris climate agreement, weakened by US president Donald Trump’s decision in June to pull out, seeks to limit a rise in global temperature to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial times. The study said that some of the measures would cost $10 a tonne or less to avert a tonne of carbon dioxide, with others up to $100 a tonne to qualify as “cost-effective” by 2030.

Source: The Guardian October 17, 2017 11:15 UTC