Climate: Is the promise to plant “a billion trees” a good idea?

"Hello, do you know where we are with the billion trees planted in France to capture CO₂? And is it working as an idea?" Question asked by Brigitte at [email protected]

My answer: The promise to plant 1 billion trees by 2032 isn't very successful. Above all, the method of doing it is quite inefficient: to plant new trees, we cut down existing plots. The results for the climate and biodiversity are not very good.

1/Where are we with this promise?

After the major fires of summer 2022, Emmanuel Macron pledged to launch a major plan for French forests: "Our goal is to be able to replant a billion trees in ten years. (…) It means renewing 10% of our forest. That's what we must do." ( You can find his statement here .)

Three years later, the pace isn't exactly right, according to government data. So far, around 80 million trees have been planted with public funds between January 2023 and January 2025. The first milestone is 467 million trees planted with public funds by December 2026—which means we'll have to hurry to keep those commitments, if they're still on track. ( See the detailed figures here .)

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