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The face of Wales' countryside would change under an international plan to plant 1 trillion new trees across the world to soak up the carbon dioxide produced since the Industrial Revolution began.

Our national parks would become covered in forestry under the Swiss plan, which would see two thirds of the CO2 released since the 18th Century stored in woodland.

The report by the Swiss university ETH Zürich found that the Earth’s land could support 4.4 billion hectares of continuous tree cover.

That is 1.6 billion more than the currently existing 2.8 billion hectares.

Once mature, these new forests could store 205 billion tonnes of carbon: about two thirds of the 300 billion tonnes of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity since the Industrial Revolution.

(Image: Mark Lewis)

So where does Wales come in?

When the scientists were assessing the suitability of areas for tree planting they excluded all fields used to grow crops and urban areas.

However they did include grazing land because they say some trees are a benefit to grazing animals.

Unlike the east and south of England, Wales has a far larger amount of land which would be suitable to tree farming so could play a vital role if this plan goes ahead.

The saplings would all be native species and, if came to fruition, could see Wales become far more forested.

(Image: Crowther Lab / ETH Zurich)

The six countries with the most potential are Russia (151 million hectares), the US (103 million hectares), Canada (78.4 million hectares), Australia (58 million hectares), Brazil (49.7 million hectares) and China (40.2 million hectares).

Though small in comparison to these giants, Wales far outstrips England for the potential tree planting based on size.

(Image: Daily Post Wales)

Why do they want to do it?

According to Professor Thomas Crowther, co-author of the study and founder of the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, the great thing about tree planting as a solution to climate change is that it is not dependant on convincing climate deniers like President Trump.

Speaking to the Guardian he said: "We all knew that restoring forests could play a part in tackling climate change, but we didn’t really know how big the impact would be. Our study shows clearly that forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today.

"But we must act quickly, as new forests will take decades to mature and achieve their full potential as a source of natural carbon storage.

"[Tree planting is] a climate change solution that doesn’t require President Trump to immediately start believing in climate change, or scientists to come up with technological solutions to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

“It is available now, it is the cheapest one possible and every one of us can get involved.” Individuals could make a tangible impact by growing trees themselves, donating to forest restoration organisations and avoiding irresponsible companies."

Why are so many people protesting about climate change? Across the world there is an overwhelming consensus amongst scientists that the actions of humans are making our planet hotter. There is no longer any debate on the fact that without urgent action to tackle the issue of carbon emissions we will be in serious trouble. Experts agree that the current action by government is woefully short of what is needed if we are going to prevent catastrophic damage to our planet and way of life. The protesters are calling on our government to do more to tackle this crisis.

Would it work?

As trees grow they take in and store the carbon dioxide that is currently filling up the atmosphere and heating up the earth.

However there are a few caveats. A thorough analysis of this can be found here by the website DeSmog .