A new interactive online tool is set to encourage tree planting
across the UK by calculating how much pollution it could
remove in local areas, and the corresponding public health
cost savings.
The tool – Pollution Removed by Vegetation – takes national
data and makes it locally relevant and accessible for councils,
NGOs, developers and other businesses that are considering
planting initiatives.
Scientists at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH)
teamed up with eftec, an environmental economics
consultancy, to develop the tool, which shows the existing
amount of woodland in each local authority in hectares, how
much particulate matter (PM2.5) the trees remove from the air
and the resulting predicted public health cost saving withinthat area over a 100-year period.
Ian Dickie of eftec explained: “Trees make urban areas
more attractive and improve local air quality, thereby boosting
people’s health. As our ongoing research has shown, this in
turn can have significant positive economic benefits.
“We regularly hear political commitments to plant more
trees in urban areas – our new online tool will inform and
support the efforts by local and central government, NGOs,
businesses and individuals in adding trees in our towns and
cities.
“We were very pleased with the positive feedback we
received about the valuation tool from these stakeholders at a
recent webinar and hope it will encourage and support their
tree planting initiatives in pollution hotspots.”TREE planting has ‘mind-blowing’ potential
to tackle climate change, according
to scientists who have made the first
calculation of how much land would be
suitable for global reforestation.
Around 0.9 billion ha of land would
be suitable for a worldwide planting
programme, which it is estimated could
remove two-thirds of human-made carbon
emissions – some 205 billion tonnes.
All fields used to grow crops and urban
areas were excluded from the analysis.
However, grazing land was included.
The research was carried out by the
Crowther Lab at ETH Zürich and published
in the journal Science.
“This new quantitative evaluation shows
forest restoration isn’t just one of our climate
change solutions, it is overwhelmingly the
top one,” said Professor Tom Crowther of
ETH Zürich.
“What blows my mind is the scale. I
thought restoration would be in the top 10,
but it is overwhelmingly more powerful than
all of the other solutions proposed.”
As the UK experiences soaring
temperatures this summer, Friends of the
Earth has backed reforestation as a means
of protecting people from extreme heat, as
well as combatting climate change. Tree
campaigner Emi Murphy said: “Climate
breakdown risks making heatwaves thenorm, which will put more and more lives
at risk in the future. Alongside slashing
greenhouse gas emissions, we need more
trees in our towns and cities to protect us
from the impacts of summer heat that is
already costing lives right here in the UK.”
The analysis, while promising, has
received criticism from some. Professor
James Meadowcroft of Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada said the research was not a
“magic bullet” to solve the problem.
“If we don’t stop emitting greenhouse
gases through the combustion of fossil fuels,
we can’t really escape climate change,” he
told CTV’s Your Morning. Prof. Meadowcroft
also questioned the practicalities of setting
aside so much land as the world’s population
increases. “It has to be a collective effort. It’s
really about governments and municipalities
and the urban effort and things like that –
not just individuals.”
Mark Maslin, professor of earth system
science, UCL, and Simon Lewis, professor
of global change science at the University of
Leeds and UCL, were sceptical around how
much CO2 0.9 billion ha of new forest could
store, arguing reforestation should be one
solution to climate change among many.Tree planting could
tackle climate change,
research shows
ONLINE CALCULATOR SHOWS HOW TREES CAN
IMPROVE AIR QUALITY AND CUT HEALTH COSTS
NEWS
LATEST UPDATE FROM THE GLOBAL FORESTRY INDUSTRY
FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK AUGUST 2019 7