With over 200 million trees planted by Jews returning to their homeland since 1881 – Israel stands out as the only country in the world with an increase in total tree number during the 20th century. Although all growing trees absorb carbon dioxide, afforestation in Israel cannot address the concept of additionality under any circumstances. We therefore focus our carbon sequestration efforts on urban tree planting.

Major additional benefits related to urban trees including direct and indirect cooling, pollutant sequestering, biodiversity enhancement and protection of green public open spaces.

On February 15^th 2008 we signed a pledge with 18 mayors of the largest cities in Israel to cut GHG emissions by 20% of year 2000 baseline by 2020. A major tool to achieve this target is urban tree planting. While planning to concentrate our efforts in developing towns in Israel's periphery - we started with planting eucalyptuses on urban areas destined for future development in Herzelia. A special task force (citytree NGO) is expected to implement the "Million Trees for Gush Dan" plan established by the Heschel Center in cooperation with relevant partners.

Planting will be accompanied by a broad climate related educational campaign including physical planting by children and parents.

 

Carbon sequestration values are widely variable depending on latitude, soil, water supply, and tree type. The GEI currently uses a very conservative assumption for expected carbon delivery due to Israel's low latitude and the expected rising of mean temperature. We evaluate every tree as a carbon sink for 675 kg CO2. The initial stage of this project is expected to deliver 500,000 tons carbon credits over 25 years.