> there's no way forests can significantly sequester fossil carbon from oil, gas and coal combustion at any meaningful rate Not true. In the US, forests remove

> there's no way forests can significantly sequester fossil carbon from oil, gas and coal combustion at any meaningful rate Not true. In the US, forests remove about 10% of the greenhouse emissions. Can we get more? I think we can, without implausible efforts, increase this to 15% (see note). But even if we can't, this 10% is still very important. Why? Because it means we need to reduce our emissions by only 90% to achieve net zero, not by 100%. This might seem insignificant, but it isn't. People like to point out to parts of the economy that appear nearly impossible to de-carbonize, and then throw up their hands and claim that we'll never achieve net zero. An example is airplane emissions. But a much more important example is the intermittency issue of solar and wind. Batteries alone can't solve this, not if they don't become 100 times cheaper, and this will not happen in the next 3 decades. But natural gas peaker plants can solve this. Fun fact: right now the total carbon sequestration provided by the forests is almost precisely equal to the total greenhouse emissions of the natural gas power plants. If you keep these plants, or just a small fraction of them, and use them only to smooth out the electricity output of solar and wind, then the forests will sequester many times more than the peaker plants will emit. So, all those who say solar and wind can't take us to net zero are wrong. (Note about potential additional forests sequestration: there are about 600 million acres of forest in the US. There are about 30 million acres planted with corn that is used to produce "bio"-ethanol. If we discontinue that subsidy, and plant the 30 million acres with forests, a simple rule of 3 would indicate that we'll increase sequestration by 5%. However young forests sequester much more carbon, and release much less, that it's quite likely the additional sequestration could be 50% for a few decades. Not forever, but we can buy 3 decades of sequestration, and that's what we need).