How much CO2 does a tree capture?
Who doesn’t like trees? They give us food, fiber, materials and capture atmospheric CO2 in large amounts.
But how important is the CO2 capture by trees in the context of climate action?
Specifically, how much CO2 does a tree capture over its lifetime?
The answer depends on which tree one is talking about.
Some exceptional trees such as coastal redwood are estimated to capture a massive 250 tons of CO2 over their lifetime. What about other trees?
Over their lifetime:
- Oak trees capture anywhere between 2-5 tons per tree
- Banyan trees about 1 ton, and
- Salt tolerant trees in mangrove forests as low as 0.3 tons.
Broadly, it can be said that the CO2 capture potential for most trees over their lifetime is in the 1-2 tons range.
But this capture is not spread evenly over the lifetime.
Not surprisingly, the amount of CO2 captured is much less when it a small plant, and much larger amounts when the tree is fully grown. This implies that maintaining a plant over its lifetime is far more important than simply planting it, in the context of climate action.
By the way…
- The world has about 3 trillion trees in total. Assuming an average lifetime capture of 1 ton/tree, that would be 3 trillion tons of CO2 captured over their lifetime. Taking an average lifetime of 100 years per tree, it would imply that about 30 billion tons of CO2 captured by trees worldwide every year – almost the same as the total annual human-made CO2 emissions!
