The researchers found that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects forestry to play a critical role in reducing climate change.
Planting trees and preventing deforestation are considered key climate change mitigation strategies, but a new analysis finds the cost of preserving and planting trees to hit certain global emissions reductions targets could accelerate quickly.
In the analysis, researchers from RTI International (RTI), North Carolina State University and Ohio State University report costs will rise steeply under more ambitious emissions reductions plans. By 2055, they project it would cost as much as $393 billion per year to pay landowners to plant and protect enough trees to achieve more than 10 percent of total emissions reductions that international policy experts say are needed to restrict climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The findings were published today in the journal Nature Communications.
“The global forestry sector can provide a really substantial chunk of the mitigation needed to hit global climate targets,” said Justin Baker, co-author of the study and associate professor of forest resource economics at NC State. “The physical potential is there, but when we look at the economic costs, they are nonlinear. That means that the more we reduce emissions – the more carbon we’re sequestering – we’re paying higher and higher costs for it.”
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