Forests, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in growing vegetation and soils, are key players in the US strategy for carbon dioxide removal and achieving net-zero emissions by midcentury. Will forests be enough? David N. Wear, director of RFF’s Land Use, Forestry, and Agriculture Program and coauthor of a new working paper about carbon storage in US forests, shares his thoughts. [Report excerpt: We show that avoided deforestation provides up to twice as much CDR benefit as increased afforestation. The disparities in the CDR effects of afforestation and deforestation indicate that no-net-loss policies could mitigate some CDR losses but would likely lead to overall declines in CDR for our 45-year time horizon. Over a longer period, afforestation could offset more of the losses from deforestation but on a timeframe inconsistent with most climate change policy efforts.]