Not one tree promised to Greta has been planted

Despite a promise made to 17- year- old climate activist Greta Thunberg to plant 2 billion trees in the next 10 years, the Trudeau government has not yet planted a single one.

Last year — less than a month away from the federal election — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that, if elected, his government would plant 2 billion trees by 2030. The announcement came on the same day that Trudeau met with Thunberg in Montreal.

“Nature isn’t just part of our identity as Canadians, it’s also a part of the solution to climate change and it’s a solution we can start using today,” Trudeau said in 2019.

But, on Wednesday, La Presse reported that none of the anticipated new trees had been planted. According to the Quebec newspaper, just under 600,000 trees should have been planted every day since September 2019, if the government was to reach its stated goal.

Speaking to CTV News, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’regan’s office said that while the government is already planting 600- million trees every year, the delay on the new promise is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trees promised to Thunberg were set to be an initiative separate to regular replanting efforts.

A spokesman for O’REgan’s office said the government is still committed to those 2 billion trees, and will share more details at a later time. He also mentioned that the government provided $30 million to let the forestry sector work during the pandemic.

At the time of Trudeau’s announcement, a study estimated that there is room for about 900- million hectares of tree coverage in the world, which could store 205 gigatons of carbon. Based on these numbers, the researcher said, “this highlights global tree restoration as our most effective climate change solution to date.”