But the solution long touted by Democrats and environmental advocates — government action to force emissions reductions — remains a non-starter with most Republicans.
But the tree-planting push has drawn intense pushback from environmental scientists who call it a distraction from cutting emissions from fossil fuels. The authors of the original study have also clarified that planting trees does not eliminate “the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Planting one trillion trees would also require a massive amount of space — roughly the size of the continental United States. And more trees could even increase the risk of wildfires by serving as fuel in a warming world.
“There is a lot of value to planting trees, but it is not a panacea,” said Mark Ashton, a professor of forest ecology at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
For Republicans, the bill checks the right boxes. It is friendly to the timber industry and touts a climate solution — sequestering a massive amount of carbon from manmade emissions — that would also partially alleviate the need to wean the country off fossil fuels.
Now that he has a slim House majority, McCarthy has also pushed for expanded energy production. He made the “ Lower Energy Costs Act” the top legislative priority of the new GOP majority, as signified by its bill number — H.R. 1. The proposal, which passed the House on a mostly party-line vote in March, would spur American energy production, especially oil, gas and coal.
Democrats like President Joe Biden rejected the bill as a “thinly veiled license to pollute,”
But not all Republicans agree that there’s a need to address climate change. Rep. Scott Perry, who leads the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, in a hearing Thursday alleged that the Biden administration’s climate agenda was tackling “a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Perry went on to declare — without evidence — that global leaders pushing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are “grifting.”
Nearly across the board, House Republicans have tried to undo parts of Biden’s climate agenda, deriding them as expensive and burdensome. They have targeted government incentives for clean energy projects and denounced investment strategies that account for environmental impact. Last week, they moved to restrict the Department of Defense from using funds to implement the president’s executive orders on climate.
“You are seeing a recognition in the Republican Party that climate change is something they are going to have to at least acknowledge because their constituents are dealing with it on a daily basis and it’s having an increasing economic toll,” said Lena Moffit, executive director of Evergreen Action, an environmental group that promotes urgent action. “But you cannot say you are committed to putting out the house fire while you pour more gasoline on it.”
https://apnews.com/article/climate-...illion-trees-01e455acce4397c0376e82bfa18b72c2
