Is it feasible to exhaust all fossil fuel reserves and offset the impact through tree planting?

When we take the plane, we are often offered the possibility of planting trees on the other side of the planet to compensate for the emissions of our flight. A luxury that allows the 2 to 4 % of the inhabitants of the planet who fly each year to reduce their carbon footprint and relieve their consciousness. But what would happen if we extended this luxury to our entire economy? Can we really continue to emit CO₂ cheerfully and hope to compensate for it later? The question becomes urgent while we are currently above 1.5 ° C increase in temperature from the industrial era.

In a new study, we show that compensating for CO emissions₂ costs too much to be a viable solution. For example, if you want to capture CO₂ directly in the air, the cost that this represents is around € 1,000 per tonne, depending on the estimates of the few existing projects, such as the Climeworks project in Iceland. Technology works with giant fans that directly aspire the CO₂ air. To put it where? The Norwegians started on Thursday June 12, the installation of a CO₂ capturing and storage infrastructure under the ocean floor, support for support marketing on Thursday. It seems ideal for continuing to pollute, while not affecting the planet.

Estimates in our study show that the 200 largest oil companies would produce approximately 673 gigatons of CO₂ By burning their oil, gas and coal reserves. These reservations are registered in their annual reports and it is the basis of their financial valuation. Their shareholders know that it is thanks to these reservations that they have a certain market capitalization rather than another.

Carbon capture and storage? Overpriced

The problem, as shown in our study, is that to compensate for the current reserves of gas, oil and coal companies, it would cost around 673,700 billion euros, almost seven times the world's GDP. This implies that if we want to continue polluting until you have exhausted the fossil fuel reserves, we should pay the equivalent of seven years of all world production. At this price, you might as well pollute.

At the level of fossil companies, the calculation would not be profitable either. For Total Energy, which has reserves of around 4.25 Gigatonnes of CO₂ In reservations, it's too expensive. At € 1,000 per tonne, Total should pay around 4,253 billion euros. It is almost 34 times its market value, which today amounts to around 126 billion euros.

In our study, we call this net environmental value, that is to say the value of a fossil company once the co₂ contained in its offset reserves. As soon as the price to compensate for a ton of CO₂ exceeds $ 150, the net environmental value of the 200 largest companies in the fossil fuels becomes negative. In other words, if fossil companies were to compensate for their emissions, they would all put the key under the door. Fortunately for them, no legislation in this sense applies for the moment. Some have understood this and started to invest in green energy generating technologies.

Plant trees? At least we should cover all of North America!

However, there are more affordable solutions, such as the one that we are offered on board planes in particular: planting trees. According to an OECD study, the price is minimal since it amounts to around 16 dollars per ton. This tiny cost is understood without the price of the field: planting trees in Manhattan is probably more expensive.

Trees are generally half carbon composed. For many species of trees, this sequestration is the most effective during the first twenty years of growth. But for the planting of trees to capture carbon, it is of course necessary to prevent them from being cut or burned, which would again release all the sequestered carbon. And we must avoid planting them in a place where it could disturb the ecosystem already in place … Can we therefore save the planet by planting trees?

In our study, we used the means of carbon capture by the trees, depending on the regions where they would be planted, by 2050. If we wanted to compensate for the potential emissions of all gas, oil and coal reserves, trees should be planted on a very large area, which depends on the regions of the world (some being more conducive than others to sequestration of carbon). One of our estimates is that it would be necessary to cover around 27 million square kilometers, the entire North and central America, as well as part of South America. This would involve replacing all constructions, roads, lakes, and planting trees everywhere, and not counting those that are already growing.

Although the idea is absurd, the card below allows you to represent the surface that this represents. In other words, even if the planting of trees can be a good form of carbon capture, the solution is not viable if we look at the expanses of gas, oil and coal reserves currently in possession of fossil companies. And if we push this idea even further, by wanting to plant enough trees to compensate for the co₂ Already issued during history, this time should be transformed into a giant forest not only North America, but also Europe and almost all of Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to Zimbabwe.