How do trees store carbon, and why is there no fixed number per tree?
Trees pull CO2 from the air and lock carbon into wood, roots and soil. Here is how that works, how India measures forest carbon, why per-tree figures vary so widely, and why permanence matters.
Where is the carbon stored?
The IPCC Guidelines count five carbon pools in a forest:
| Pool | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Above-ground biomass | Trunk, branches, bark, leaves |
| Below-ground biomass | Live roots |
| Dead wood | Fallen or standing dead trees |
| Litter | Fallen leaves and twigs on the ground |
| Soil organic carbon | Carbon mixed into the soil |
Roots are a big share. IPCC Table 4.4 gives default root-to-shoot ratios: for tropical dry forest, 0.56 where above-ground biomass is under 20 tonnes per hectare and 0.28 where it is higher; for tropical moist deciduous forest, 0.20 and 0.24. That means roots can hold from about a fifth to over half as much as the parts you see.
Soil matters even more. In India's forests, soil organic carbon is the largest pool, according to the India State of Forest Report 2023.
Sources: 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 4 (AFOLU), Chapter 4 Forest Land; 2006 IPCC Guidelines, Volume 4, Chapter 2 Generic methodologies (carbon pools, gain-loss and stock-difference methods); 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines, Volume 4, Chapter 4 Forest Land; PIB, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav releases India State of Forest Report 2023 (December 2024); PIB backgrounder, India's Green Recovery: Forest and Tree Cover Grows (27 December 2024); Forest Survey of India, India State of Forest Report 2023, Volume I; PIB, Carbon stock in India increases by 79.4 million tonnes (ISFR 2021); IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Summary for Policymakers (2022); IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Chapter 12 Cross-sectoral perspectives (2022); India's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (2015), UNFCCC NDC Registry; GHG Protocol, Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Revised Edition); Verra, VCS AFOLU Non-Permanence Risk Tool; UNFCCC: India's Updated First Nationally Determined Contribution under Paris Agreement (2021-2030), August 2022; UNFCCC: India's Nationally Determined Contribution (2031-2035), April 2026
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked by the GreenEye team against the sources shown in each section.
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