By MARSHA
MERCER
Nobody
would mistake President Donald Trump for a tree hugger.
He has dismissed
climate change as a “hoax,” rolled back many Obama-era environmental and clean
energy policies that reduce carbon emissions, and is withdrawing the United States
from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
But as his
impeachment trial was poised to begin in Washington Tuesday, Trump announced during
a campaign-style speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the
United States would join in the forum’s 1 Trillion Trees initiative. What?
The forum
launched 1t.org to connect, support and fund the international movement to plant
1 trillion trees around the globe in coming decades to fight climate change.
Billionaire
entrepreneur Marc Benioff, founder of the software company Salesforce, and his
wife Lynne are providing financial support for the 1t.org digital platform. Benioff
said his company also intends “to support and mobilize the conservation and
restoration of 100 million trees over the next decade.”
Trump’s
announcement that the U.S. will join 1t.org drew applause from the global
business and government leaders in Davos, but it’s unclear what happens next.
“We will
continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing
our trees and forests,” Trump said, but offered no specifics.
Although he
described himself to reporters in Davos as “a very big believer in the
environment,” Trump has proposed cuts in the U.S. Forest Service, opened public
lands to drilling and mining, and pushed for new logging in the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska.
In Davos,
Trump downplayed climate fears saying, “This is not a time for pessimism; this
is a time for optimism. . . this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and
optimism and action.”
He also indirectly
called out Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist from Sweden who was in
the audience. She urges all countries to heed the call by the United Nations environmental
panel to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over a decade to avoid intense
climate impact. That will require reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55%
between now and 2030.
But Trump said: "We
must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the
apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.” He also
lambasted “radical socialists” who would ruin the U.S. economy with
environmental regulations.
Forests remove
carbon dioxide from the air and store the carbon in trees, vegetation, the
forest floor and in the soil. This carbon removal, or sequestration, “makes the
forest a type of carbon sink by absorbing more CO2 than is emitted. This
absorption partially offsets the contribution of carbon to the atmosphere from
carbon sources such as the burning of fossil fuels,” the Virginia Department of
Forestry says on its website.
Some
nations have acted. Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in 12 hours
last July, setting a new world record. India had held the record for planting
66 million trees in 2017.
Trump’s comments
in Davos reflect the shifting politics of climate in Congress. House
Republicans who recognize they’re losing young voters concerned about climate
issues, are developing an alternative to the Democrats’ Green New Deal, Axios
reported this week. The Green New Deal would remake the economy to fight
climate change. The GOP plan stops short of envisioning major changes in how we
work and live.
Rep. Bruce
Westerman, Republican of Arkansas, is drafting a Trillion Trees Act that will set
a target for growing more trees “for the purpose of sequestering carbon,”
according to a summary of the bill Axios viewed, but so far does not include an
actual numerical target.
Who doesn’t like
trees? Planting them makes people feel good, but that by itself won’t come
close to solving the climate crisis. It’s estimated reforestation could provide
only up to one-third of the climate solutions needed by 2030 to meet the 1.5
degree goal, the forum reported.
“Nature-based
solutions will only be effective if undertaken in conjunction with other
efforts to transform energy, heavy industry and the finance sectors,” the forum
said.
We in the
United States should plant trees as a first step, but we, the Trump
administration and Congress will need to do more to fight climate change.
© Marsha
Mercer 2020. All rights reserved.
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