A forest the size of North America would be needed to offset Big Oil’s reserves

> A study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment analyzed the economic and ecological benefits of planting trees as a means of balancing potential carbon dioxide emissions from the projected burning of oil reserves held by the fossil fuel industry.

> The world’s 200 largest fossil-fuel companies hold about 200 billion tons of carbon in their reserves, which would generate as much as 742 billion tons of CO2 if burned, according to the study. That’s far more than the budget required to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.5 degrees Celsius — an internationally agreed-upon target intended to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

> The burning of fossil fuels represents about 90% of planet-warming emissions. But, as the paper notes, “fossil-fuel companies currently face **little incentive** to reduce the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and regulatory measures to limit these activities have been slow to materialise.”

> The researchers set out to calculate how much land area of afforestation would be needed to compensate for these emissions by 2050. The number they came up with was 9.5 million square miles of new trees — **more land area than North America and part of South America.**

> “That would **displace all infrastructure, agriculture and preexisting habitats**,” Friggens said. “It’s not something that we are at all suggesting that we do — it’s just to illustrate the size of the problem.”