Friday, April 4, 2008

1,000 Trees Needed for Each Korean's Carbon Emission

Each Korean would have to plant 947 trees to remove the carbon dioxide he or she is responsible for emitting, research suggests. The Korea Forest Research Institute on Wednesday released a report on carbon offset standards, which shows how many trees people would have to plant to remove the carbon dioxide they emit.

Carbon dioxide is the main culprit of global warming. Suppose a person exhales 1 ton of carbon dioxide annually, they need to plant 360 pine trees to remove it. As each Korean emits an average of 2.63 tons of carbon dioxide every year, he or she needs to plant 947 young pine trees, requiring land half the size of a soccer stadium.

According to the U.S. Center for Global Development in 2007, South Korea ranked 10th among the world's greenhouse gas emitters by emitting 185 million tons of such gases annually.
The KFRI operates a "tree carbon calculator" (http://carbon.kfri.go.kr) to help individuals calculate their carbon footprint and make a plan to reduce carbon emissions. The exact amounts of carbon dioxide emissions is calculated by entering the amounts of energy used at home and of fuel used by cars.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

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