Afforestation is an unreliable way of sequestering atmospheric carbon, according to several key figures interviewed by Dezeen as part of our carbon revolution series.
While trees capture huge amounts of carbon, they need to remain growing for a long time to be effective carbon stores, experts say.
In addition, the timber they produce needs to be put to long-term use to prevent the carbon it contains from quickly going back into the atmosphere when it rots or is burned.
"Planting trees is probably the most difficult potential method from a measurement and verification perspective," said Paul Gambrill, CEO of carbon marketplace Nori in an interview with Dezeen.
"Forests need to have a permanence of 100 years to be effective" "You plant the forest but you don't start seeing carbon retention and sequestration happening for at least 10 years after they're planted, so there's a long lag time in doing that," explained Gambrill, whose company allows people who capture atmospheric carbon to sell it to people who want to offset their emissions.
"And then you have to maintain that forest and make sure it isn't burned or cut down."Forests need to have a permanence of 100 years to be effective carbon stores", he said.
"So you plant your saplings and then you have to maintain the forest for 100 years. That's multiple generations of people. How many companies last 100 years these days" How on earth is anyone going to afford to mainta...