University of Utah researchers want to reform carbon credits

By Thys Reynolds
Utah Public Radio
October 17, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

As the planet heats up, we need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. …‘nature-based climate solutions’ are human interventions that utilize natural processes to draw down carbon from the atmosphere. According to William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah, planting forests is an especially promising option. “The central opportunity here is that we can leverage nature,” Anderegg says, “and forests globally have pretty large potential to help with climate change mitigation.” [However], Anderegg says …there are many problems with the programs that seek to plant forests as a climate solution. In a new paper published in the journal Nature, Anderegg and his colleagues outline several key issues with nature-based climate solutions. First is the idea of a net-cooling effect. While forests remove carbon from the atmosphere, they can warm the earth in other ways…

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