What does carbon offset actually mean for US forests?
- Media Manager
- Sep 12, 2023
- 1 min read
Phys.org
Written By: Sarah Kuta
Published: September 13th, 2023
While cars, airplanes and factories are busy spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, trees spend much of their time absorbing this harmful greenhouse gas via photosynthesis.
In a single calendar year, a mature tree can take in roughly 48 pounds of CO2, which remains stored in its woody fibers until some event—like a wildfire, a pest infestation or clearcutting by a logging company—triggers its release into the atmosphere.
This natural process is at the heart of the world's carbon offset industry, in which companies and consumers counteract their CO2 emissions by buying credits from projects that remove or reduce emissions. Carbon offsetting is part of a broader group of so-called nature-based solutions to human-caused climate change.
Now, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are working to bring more transparency to this fast-growing industry. With a new paper published in the journal PLOS Climate, they shed more light on the murky world of forest carbon offset projects in the United States, including what they entail. They also raise important questions about the risk wildfires pose to carbon offset projects, which are intended to store carbon for at least 100 years.
