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.
Why do per-tree carbon figures vary so much?
You may see claims like "one tree absorbs X kg of CO2 a year". Such numbers come from particular species measured in particular places, and they do not transfer well. The main reasons:
- Species and wood density. Dense hardwoods pack more carbon into each cubic metre than light softwoods.
- Age. A sapling stores very little. Growth is usually fastest in the middle years and slows as trees mature. The IPCC (AR6 Working Group III, Chapter 12, 2022) notes that sequestration slows as forests mature.
- Site and climate. Soil depth, water, rainfall, heat and competition from weeds change growth a lot.
- Care. Watering, protection from grazing and fire, and weeding in the first years decide whether a sapling becomes a tree.
- Survival. A sapling that dies stores nothing lasting. Survival rates vary widely between plantations.
- What happens later. If the tree is cut and burned, the carbon returns to the air. If the wood becomes long-lasting furniture or beams, some stays stored for longer.
Because of all this, one tree is not a fixed number of kilograms of CO2 a year.
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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