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 does GreenEye not publish a carbon figure per tree?
GreenEye plants many species in many places, and survival and growth differ from site to site. Turning that into one number of kilograms of CO2 per tree would be guesswork and could mislead you. So we do not publish a per-tree carbon figure or promise that our trees offset a stated amount of CO2.
Instead, we explain how trees store carbon, and our plant articles describe each species' growth habit and needs. Plant the right tree in the right place, care for it until it is established, and keep cutting your own emissions.
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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