A recent analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggested that housing a growing population in dwellings constructed of wood rather than standard steel and concrete might save more than 100 billion tons of CO2 emissions until 2100.
This represents around 10% of the remaining carbon budget for the 2°C climate objective.
In addition to harvesting from natural forests, freshly created timber plantations are needed to supply building wood.
While this has little effect on food production, the scientists warned that if not carefully controlled, biodiversity may suffer.
The study is the first to examine the effects of a large-scale transition to wood cities on land use, emissions from land-use change, and long-term carbon storage in harvested forests.
More tree plantings, no decline in agricultural land
Phil Hearing/Unsplash
Cities already house more than half of the world's population, and this figure is expected to rise dramatically by 2100.
According to Abhijeet Mishra, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the main author of the study to be published in Nature Communications, this means that more homes will be built using steel and concrete, the majority of which have a significant carbon footprint.
But they have an alternative: house the rising urban population in mid-rise structures that is four to 12 stories built out of wood.
Wood is a renewable resource with the lowest carbon footprint of any similar building material because trees absorb CO2 from the environment as they develop.
The scientists examined four distinct land-use scenarios in the research, using the open-source global land use allocation model MAgPIE: one with typical building materials like cement and steel, three with additional timber demand on top of the usual timber demand.
They also examined how the additional high demand for wooden building materials could be met, where it would come from, and what the implications might be in terms of direct and indirect carbon emissions from land usage.
"Our simulation demonstrates that enough wood for new mid-rise urban structures can be generated without having a significant impact on food production," said PIK scientist and research co-author Florian Humpenöder via ScienceDaily.
Wood is supplied from both timber plantations and natural forests.
As Humpenöder points out, the majority of the additional timber plantations required - roughly 140 million hectares - are established on harvested forest areas rather than agricultural land.
Researchers require farmland to provide food for people; utilizing it to grow trees may promote competition for limited land resources.
Why can planting trees help you lower your carbon footprint?
Every living creature on the planet is composed of four fundamental elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, as per One Tree Planted.
These four parts comprise around 96% of your body and the majority of a tree's roots, trunk, branches, and leaves.
While people obtain the majority of their carbon from eating, plants breathe it in (just like we breathe in oxygen).
When a tree breathes, it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen, which is the polar opposite of what humans do.
And as a tree develops, it may consume 22 pounds of CO2 every year (along with other greenhouse gases like ozone) while producing enough oxygen for you to breathe for two years
Trees have a significant role in reducing energy use by providing shade in metropolitan areas, as they may reduce temperatures.
According to the EPA, tree shade, along with the water vapor they emit, can lower peak temperatures by up to 20-45°F (11-25°C) when compared to unshaded locations.
Internal temperatures can decrease 8-10°F when the shadow is thrown on an office building or residence.
Based on some calculations, the shade from a single tree may save the same amount of energy as powering ten room-sized air conditioners for 20 hours a day.
