London researchers have identified a new reason for preserving urban trees. Woodland in the world’s great cities, originally intended to enhance the streets, can store as much carbon as a comparable stand of tropical rainforest. Great concentrations of people in rapidly expanding cities are both driving climate change and at the same time increasingly vulnerable to the extremes of heat threatened by runaway global warming. So the finding is another reminder of the impact that megacities have both on climate change and on the answers to climate change. Other research teams have already emphasised the direct value of green canopy in crowded urban streets: one study has calculated that megacities benefit to the value of around $500 million a year just by having tree-lined streets and shaded parks.
Climate News Network 29th June 2018 read more »
