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With human activities releasing more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than natural processes can remove, new analysis has shed light on the number of extra trees that cities around the world would need to neutralise their carbon footprint.
Picterra, a leading cloud-native geospatial AI platform, has used its technology to visualise tree coverage in over 25 of the world’s most iconic cities, before analysing external data to estimate their CO2 emissions and the number of trees and the amount of space that it estimates would be required to offset the equivalent carbon.
Omitting an estimated 320,241,244 tonnes of CO2 every year, Tokyo would have to plant over 2 billion (2,001,507,775) trees, which would require a total of 12,509 kilometres of land, accounting for tree planting density guidelines.
On the opposite end of the scale, Rotterdam demanded the fewest trees to neutralise its approximate 7,930,313 tonnes of emissions, with 49,564,459 trees and 309 kilometres required.
Known for being home to one of the most visited city parks worldwide, New York came fifth in the rankings, needing the equivalent of 1,304 Central Parks to counteract its emissions. Meanwhile, London, landing in seventeenth place, would have to make room for another 1,330 Hyde Parks.
Renowned for its skyscrapers and modern architecture, Dubai came in tenth place overall, yet fared the worst for the number of trees required per person to offset its CO2 levels, at an estimated 130.5 trees for each resident.
A full list of findings can be found in the below league table, ranked from the cities in need of the most trees to the fewest.
City
Total City CO2 (Megatonnes)
No. of Trees to Neutralise City CO2 (Million)
No. of Square Kilometres Required to Neutralise Total CO2
No. of Trees Required Per Person (according to 2022 population figures)
Tokyo
320.2
2001.5
12509.42
51.7
Beijing
192.6
1203.9
7524.65
53.1
Moscow
168.8
1054.8
6592.81
79.9
Seoul
122.5
765.3
4783.34
73.6
New York
113.9
711.9
4449.39
86.6
Toronto
96.0
606.1
3788.33
91.3
Mexico City
79.3
495.8
3098.51
21.4
Sydney
77.4
483.9
3024.53
90.7
Montreal
65.6
409.8
2561.22
91.3
Dubai
65.4
408.8
2555.27
130.5
New Delhi
62.9
393.2
2457.73
11.5
Buenos Aires
61.5
384.4
2402.22
23.8
Cairo
55.5
346.6
2166.33
15.0
Los Angeles
54.4
340.2
2126.23
86.6
Singapore
53.8
336.3
2102.17
53.1
Paris
53.4
333.5
2084.07
28.6
London
48.2
301.5
1884.40
30.0
Chicago
37.7
235.4
1471.31
86.6
Cape Town
33.0
206.3
1289.43
40.5
Hong Kong
32.6
203.6
1272.80
25.4
Barcelona
31.2
194.8
1217.45
32.9
Rio de Janeiro
29.5
184.5
1152.91
12.9
Berlin
29.2
182.3
1139.19
49.0
Milan
17.3
108.0
675.28
32.9
Lisbon
12.2
76.3
477.04
24.4
Rotterdam
7.9
49.6
309.78
46.7
Using its geospatial AI software, Picterra looked at the current state of forestry in each city, giving a realistic picture of how each city fares. Picterra enables its users to detect any objects, in this case, trees, faster than ever before by managing the entire geospatial machine learning pipeline with its cloud-native platform.
Commenting on the findings, Frank de Morsier, chief operating officer at Picterra, said: “We aim to make a positive and meaningful impact on our planet and environment. That’s why we have used our geospatial AI tool to visualise the number of trees there currently are in each city’s centre, giving a realistic view of the state of forestation in the cityscapes we know so well, with stark differences evident.
‘While the analysis of existing data alongside these visualisations is simply an estimate of how many trees and kilometres are needed to neutralise carbon emissions, it serves to illuminate how deep of an issue current CO2 levels are.
“Planting trees remains one of the most effective ways to temper carbon emissions – though, as this analysis shows, this would need to be on an extreme scale to make progress towards neutrality.”
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