Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming and protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant and animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon. What to do? Unless the world stops treating climate change and biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, according to a report by researchers from two leading international scientific panels. …Businesses and countries have increasingly looked to nature as a way to offset their emissions, for example, by planting trees to absorb carbon. But the science is clear: Nature can’t store enough carbon. …The report was the first collaboration between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Additional coverage in the Financial Times by Camilla Hodgson: Tree planting could undermine fight against climate crisis, scientists warn