Wales plans to offer ‘free trees for every household’ to fight climate change. But scientists warn of downsides if planned poorly

Wales is best known for its castles, coal mines and sheep. But the Welsh government is hoping to add something else to that list: trees.

The Welsh program is the latest in what’s become a global frenzy of tree-planting initiatives. A growing number of governments, corporations and concerned individuals see planting trees as a critical, and high-profile, way to meet carbon-reduction targets and contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as set out in the Paris Agreement.

This is your brain on trees: Why is urban nature so good for our minds, and what happens when a pandemic isolates us from it? Activists have also become wary of carbon offset programs. They argue that offsets do little to cut current emissions and let polluters off the hook. “Offsetting doesn’t stop carbon entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the ledgers of the governments and companies responsible,” Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace, said during COP26.

A study released last summer by researchers at Oxfam concluded that it was “mathematically impossible to plant enough trees to meet the combined net-zero targets announced by governments and corporations, as there is simply not enough land to do this.” Oxfam and other researchers have argued that while planting trees is worthwhile, the real focus should be on better land management and conservation.

“Primarily we need farmers to be planting more trees on their land,” Mr. Waters told reporters. “There’s a lot of anxiety in the farming community at the moment and it’s easy to see the tree as the boogeyman. Actually trees are a part of the solution of how we deal with the current crisis and it needn’t be at the expense of farming.”

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