It seems to me that on reasonable quantifications of the ways in which direct tree planting efforts in the UK do not optimize for climate impact (utter non-neglecteness, lack of advocacy, trajectory change, low policy additionality, the factors you mention in the appendix) one would have a prior where tree planting is several orders of magnitude less cost-effective than strategies that seek to optimize for impact. As such, I find a posterior of a 1-order-of-magnitude difference within reach quite surprising.
While I am generally quite pessimistic on forestry interventions because of the utter non-neglectedness and the difficulty to get to credible additionality and permanence, it seems direct tree planting in the UK is kind of close to the worst thing one can do from a climate angle. So for donors that cannot be moved from tree planting it could be interesting to see what the best charities in this space might look like, e.g. advocacy to improve REDD+ or peatland protection etc.
Re Google Trends for neglectedness: A great datasource for climate philanthropy are the Climate Works reports—those show clearly not only that forests are very well funded compared to other areas, but also that funding is growing strongly (it has been an early focus of Bezos Earth Fund, the largest climate philanthropist). In addition, IIRC, conservation philanthropy more broadly, of which a significant share focuses on forests, is several X larger than climate philanthropy.
I find a posterior of a 1-order-of-magnitude difference within reach quite surprising.
1 t/£ is estimated to be about 1 (= log10(1/0.0722)) order of magnitude (OOM) higher than the cost-effectiveness of tree planting in the UK. However, the difference to the projects funded by CCF may be quite larger. Fitting a lognormal distribution with 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles equal to the lower and upper bound of the 95 % confidence interval you guessed (with the disclaimer that it should not be intended a resilient estimate) leads to a mean of 2.34 kt/$. This is about 5 (= log10(2.34 k / 0.0722)) orders of magnitude higher than the cost-effectiveness of tree planting for the UK.
Thanks for this, Vasco, Hanzhang, Melissa!
A couple of thoughts:
It seems to me that on reasonable quantifications of the ways in which direct tree planting efforts in the UK do not optimize for climate impact (utter non-neglecteness, lack of advocacy, trajectory change, low policy additionality, the factors you mention in the appendix) one would have a prior where tree planting is several orders of magnitude less cost-effective than strategies that seek to optimize for impact. As such, I find a posterior of a 1-order-of-magnitude difference within reach quite surprising.
While I am generally quite pessimistic on forestry interventions because of the utter non-neglectedness and the difficulty to get to credible additionality and permanence, it seems direct tree planting in the UK is kind of close to the worst thing one can do from a climate angle. So for donors that cannot be moved from tree planting it could be interesting to see what the best charities in this space might look like, e.g. advocacy to improve REDD+ or peatland protection etc.
Re Google Trends for neglectedness: A great datasource for climate philanthropy are the Climate Works reports—those show clearly not only that forests are very well funded compared to other areas, but also that funding is growing strongly (it has been an early focus of Bezos Earth Fund, the largest climate philanthropist). In addition, IIRC, conservation philanthropy more broadly, of which a significant share focuses on forests, is several X larger than climate philanthropy.
Hi Johannes,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
1 t/£ is estimated to be about 1 (= log10(1/0.0722)) order of magnitude (OOM) higher than the cost-effectiveness of tree planting in the UK. However, the difference to the projects funded by CCF may be quite larger. Fitting a lognormal distribution with 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles equal to the lower and upper bound of the 95 % confidence interval you guessed (with the disclaimer that it should not be intended a resilient estimate) leads to a mean of 2.34 kt/$. This is about 5 (= log10(2.34 k / 0.0722)) orders of magnitude higher than the cost-effectiveness of tree planting for the UK.
Thanks! Yeah, a five OOM difference sounds more like what I would expect, indeed.