Fwd: Can trees warm the planet?

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Aug 22, 2025, 10:41:44 AM8/22/25

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Today’s newsletter looks at an odd unintended consequence of planting trees in certain locations. Research finds that bare, reflective surfaces can do a better job cooling the planet in some cases. You can read and share this story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

Can trees warm the planet?

By Natasha White

Trees absorb planet-heating carbon dioxide, so more of them around should help curb global warming, right?

The answer isn’t straightforward. Researchers have found that leafy canopies may have unintended consequences, especially when they cover places where surfaces do a good job at reflecting sunlight back into space — think snow, bright soils and grasslands.

Trees in these locations can lower the so-called albedo effect, or the reflectivity of the Earth, and possibly even outweigh the cooling benefits of the carbon storage they provide, according to a study published in Nature, a peer-reviewed journal.

The boreal forest north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada in 2014. Photographer: Ben Nelms

The research raises additional concerns around the climate benefits of forest-based carbon projects, which generate credits for every one ton of CO2 avoided or removed from the atmosphere. Previously researchers have revealed cases of projects overstating claims of emissions reduction benefits. Those greenwashing allegations turned away potential corporate buyers for offsets and subsequently crashed the market.

While work has been done to bolster the quality of these projects, the findings on the albedo effect highlight a new problem that may have been overlooked. “Despite the potential for albedo to reduce or even negate the climate mitigation benefits of some forest carbon projects, calculating for the effect of albedo is not considered in any carbon-crediting protocols to date,” says one of the paper’s authors, Libby Blanchard, a research associate at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy at the University of Utah.

Other researchers have made similar discoveries: The US Department of Agriculture Forest Service found in a study of satellite data, published in June, that reduced albedo offset roughly half of the non-soil carbon storage benefits of trees. The results “may temper expectations for forest establishment as a means of mitigating global climate change,” the authors wrote. An earlier paper found that forest loss in some mountain areas in the western US actually causes net planetary cooling. A third research group found that changes in albedo brought about by tree planting “offset or even negate the carbon removal benefits” in most locations.

The Nature study authors conclude that carbon offset projects should not be allowed in places where warming induced by lowered albedo outweighs the carbon storage benefit, such as some boreal forests or semi-arid drylands with sparse vegetation.

Alternatively, the authors say, the number of credits a project issues could be reduced to account for the expected changes in albedo.

“As currently configured, [forest-based carbon offset] programs are not delivering much in the way of climate benefits,” Blanchard says.

Read and share this story on Bloomberg.com.

Hold on, the planet needs trees

6.4 million

While researchers have raised concerns on where trees are planted for offset projects, deforestation is still a major problem and has significant climate consequences. About 6.4 million hectares of forests were lost in 2023, up from 6.2 million the year before.

In it for the long run

"Much like money has a time value, so does carbon. Action to reduce carbon today is more impactful than carbon reductions 15 years in the future."

Tom Montag

CEO of Rubicon Carbon

Montag and other Wall Street backers of offset markets remain convinced companies and governments will eventually embrace carbon offsets as an indispensable climate solution in a world racing to reach net zero emissions.

Washington diary

A tally of recent events you may have missed on changes impacting climate policy and science under the Trump administration.

US President Donald Trump said he will block solar and wind projects he blamed for inflating electricity prices and destroying farmland. The US Department of Agriculture will no longer approve solar panels on productive farmland, it said in a statement, and those made by “foreign adversaries” won't be used in USDA projects. But as Bloomberg’s Ari Natter and Ilena Peng write, a 2024 USDA study showed that most land surrounding solar and wind energy projects remains agriculture. Electricity prices, meanwhile, have risen because of demand from manufacturers and data centers.

The EPA began holding virtual public hearings on plans to reconsider a 2009 landmark determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. More than 71,000 public comments have already been received. As part of its proposal, the EPA would also remove all regulations requiring manufacturers of new motor vehicles and their engines to measure, report, or comply with greenhouse gas emissions standards. --Danielle Bochove

What did we miss this week in Washington? Email dboc...@bloomberg.net

More from Green

Democratic state officials from New York to California sent letters to asset managers overseeing trillions of dollars in retirement funds, urging them to consider the long-term effects of factors such as climate change when making investment decisions.

The request from more than a dozen state treasurers and comptrollers calls for investment firms to reject pressure from the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers, and instead commit to thorough evaluations of risks tied to global warming, supply chains and corporate governance.

The Republicans are misrepresenting “the true meaning of fiduciary duty” by requiring asset managers to take “a passive approach to oversight while ignoring the nature of long-term value creation in modern capital markets,” according to one of the Democrats’ letters sent to investment firms. “In contrast, we believe that fiduciary duty calls for active oversight, responsible governance and the full exercise of ownership rights on behalf of the workers and retirees we serve.”

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

India's solar industry is forecast to become second in size only to China by the mid-2030s, according to BloombergNEF, driven by the country's economic growth and rapidly accelerating electricity consumption.

China is easing restrictions on the amount of foreign capital that companies can raise for climate-related projects, as it seeks to curb greenhouse gas emissions and bolster its economy.

The UN has issued a new warning on the impact of heat on worker health. For every degree above 20C, worker productivity drops between 2% and 3%, according to new analysis from the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.

Data deep dive

By Keira Wright

Australia’s booming utility-scale solar industry may have already peaked, risking the country’s lofty climate goals.

Just 1.4 gigawatts of utility-scale solar will be commissioned in 2025 — down 28% from last year and around 40% below the 2023 peak, according to new BloombergNEF analysis.

Australia needs to accelerate its energy transition or risk missing a 2030 goal to double renewables as it phases out aging coal plants.

Installations are projected to average 1.5 gigawatts annually over the next five years, before sliding to about 736 megawatts between 2031 and 2035, BNEF found.

Worth a listen

In April, Spain suffered a nationwide blackout that lasted nearly a full day. It was a traumatic event for one of Europe’s fastest adopters of solar power, a country that tripled capacity in just five years. The outage sparked a big question: Was solar to blame? And what will it take to avoid blackouts in the renewables era? Bloomberg Green’s Laura Millan joins Akshat Rathi on Zero to unpack the lessons from the Iberian Peninsula and the technologies that could make such blackouts a thing of the past.

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

Solar panels in Avila, Spain. Photographer: Emilio Parra Doiztua/Bloomberg