Restoring tree cover is now firmly established as a strategy for removing carbon from the atmosphere to help tackle climate change.
But there is an elephant in the room when it comes to estimating just how promising a climate solution it is in different locations. This is “albedo” – the fraction of the solar radiation that is reflected from the Earth’s surface.
In essence, brighter surfaces – such as a large snowy expanse or a grassland – will generally reflect a high proportion of sunlight back into space. Trees, meanwhile, tend to be darker coloured and absorb more sunlight, keeping it on Earth – usually in the form of excess heat.
Because restoring tree cover often involves replacing brighter land covers – such as grasslands – with darker ones – namely, trees – this can lead to some degree of global warming.
In some locations, this warming can partially or even completely outweigh the benefit of increased carbon uptake by the trees. Many know of this problem, but it has been difficult to quantify the impact of albedo in specific locations.
In our new study, published in Nature Communications, we map albedo change from restoring tree cover and show that carbon-only estimates of the global climate benefits of tree-planting may be 20-81% too high.
Our maps reveal that the climate benefits of tree-planting in savannahs in Africa and central Asia would be the most reduced by albedo. But we show that it is possible to find places that provide net-positive climate mitigation benefits in all biomes.
Tree cover affects albedo
It is getting harder to ignore albedo when planning projects to restore tree cover for climate mitigation.
For example, a recent study published in Science showed that albedo, among other factors, could substantially reduce the climate mitigation benefit of restoring tree cover.
However, despite its importance, albedo is often only given a brief mention as an important factor in research attempting to quantify the climate benefits of restoring tree cover. Its impact is frequently not accounted for – or only via coarse adjustments.
In some places, restoring tree cover modifies albedo enough to dwarf smaller changes in carbon, leading to an overall (net) increase in global warming. In other locations, the impact of albedo does not outweigh the carbon removal, contributing to an overall global cooling effect.
Understanding and quantifying these variations in albedo and carbon change is crucial to the success of a project that aims to restore tree cover for climate mitigation.
Yet there has been a lack of tools to provide this information. Our study sets out to change that.
Mapping albedo change
Our study provides the maps that quantify the absolute and relative changes in albedo anywhere on Earth where we might grow trees.
We first created a series of 24 maps that quantified how albedo would change if an area transitioned from one of four open land cover classes – such as grassland or croplands – to one of six different forest-cover classes, such as deciduous broadleaf or evergreen needleleaf forest. These are useful for individual projects that know their starting and end conditions.
However, to examine general global patterns, we used a data-driven approach to model the albedo change resulting from the “most likely” open-to-forest transition for each part of the world. We then combined that with a map of maximum potential carbon storage to map net climate impact in carbon dioxide equivalents.
In this map (below), red and orange shading indicates regions where restoring tree cover leads to net warming and blue indicates regions where restoring tree cover leads to net cooling.
The map shows that, in many places, increasing tree cover is likely to contribute to global warming. These include the dryland ecosystems of central Asia and the Sahel region of Africa, as well as northern reaches of North America, Europe and Asia.
However, all biomes had at least some climate-positive locations, indicating that the coarse exclusions used in the past have missed opportunities. Moreover, some locations experience little to no albedo change, such as in south-east Asia, central Africa and the Amazon.
This map makes it possible for people to determine the best places to restore tree cover to achieve climate mitigation, as well as evaluate different scenarios of where restoration of tree cover might happen.
For example, we examined three previously published global studies of large-scale increases in tree cover. We find that, after accounting for albedo, the global climate mitigation benefit of restoring tree cover may actually be 20-81% lower than expected from carbon-only estimates.
Notably, the study with the greatest deduction included large areas of tree-planting within the tundra and other locations where we predict very negative climate outcomes. We show that constraining this study’s tree-planting to only the more climate-positive areas – about a third of the total area (311m hectares instead of 889m hectares) – would lead to a 2.5-fold increase in mitigation potential.
This demonstrates the value of strategic project placement to maximise climate benefit, because it is possible to achieve more mitigation with less investment of space.
Forest restoration projects
Encouragingly, our study also finds that hundreds of thousands of on-the-ground tree-planting projects tend to be concentrated in places where the potential for carbon removal is high and albedo change is moderate.
One example is the moist tropical ecosystems in Brazil and Indonesia. Most of these on-the-ground projects can be found at Restor, a data-driven and community-based platform that aims to accelerate restoration and makes it possible for the first time to evaluate outcomes of the global restoration movement.
This suggests that ongoing or planned projects are concentrated in places that are good for achieving climate mitigation. However, the majority – around two-thirds – of these on-the-ground projects still face an albedo offset of at least 20%, indicating that most – if not all – projects should consider albedo change in their accounting.
None of this is to criticise projects that fall in places with negative climate outcomes. There are many wider reasons for restoring tree cover in a given landscape, beyond climate mitigation, including cleaner water, wildlife habitat, stabilised soils, sustainable livelihoods and cooler local temperatures.
However, for projects where the emphasis is on achieving climate mitigation, it is important to consider changes in albedo alongside changes in carbon removal, especially now that the tools are available to do so.
In general, climate accounting is not for the faint of heart. There are many factors such as albedo that can alter the total climate mitigation of natural climate solutions. However, we are in a critical time when pragmatic decisions need to be made now about which climate solutions to deploy and where.
Alongside our study, we have produced a dedicated web platform – called “naturebase” – to help policymakers, practitioners, communities and governments identify where, why and how to implement nature-based projects with the highest carbon mitigation.
This tool includes maps, data and case studies to show how different natural climate solutions – including restoration of tree cover – could benefit the climate across the world.
Policymakers and land managers are under growing pressure to make complex choices in line with global agreements. We hope that the science in our study and the tools in the naturebase platform will help enable smarter, more nature-positive decisions.
The post Guest post: Mapping where tree-planting has the greatest climate benefit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: Mapping where tree-planting has the greatest climate benefit
Climate Change
FLIP OFF WOODSIDE TO SAVE SCOTT REEF: Greenpeace, Michael Caton, Thinkerbell mobilise Australia to challenge gas project at Scott Reef
6 November 2026
Greenpeace Australia Pacific has joined forces with Thinkerbell and iconic Australian actor Michael Caton on a major public movement and behaviour change initiative to save Scott Reef, calling on Australians to “flip off” gas corporation Woodside. The company plans to drill for gas at Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to vulnerable green sea turtles, endangered pygmy blue whales, and thousands of marine species, off the coast of Western Australia.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE
At the heart of the collaboration is somebody who knows a thing or two about fighting off corporations to protect a home: Michael Caton. Set in a courtroom, Caton gives his voice to a voiceless inhabitant, a green sea turtle, and together they invite the public to show their support to save Scott Reef.
Designed to shift public behaviour and drive national debate, the movement asks the public to tag their MPs – applying direct political pressure on Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Albanese Albanese to “flip off” Woodside’s dirty gas project, which would see up to 57 toxic wells drilled around Scott Reef off the coast of Western Australia.
Voiced by Michael Caton and set to a soundtrack provided by Radiohead, the narrative centres on our hero turtle defending her home from corporate overreach in a courtroom showdown. As the turtle defiantly flips her flippers at Woodside, Michael Caton calls on everyday Australians to take a stand and help save her home.
Michael Caton said: “I’m proud to lend my voice to Greenpeace to help save Scott Reef. The marine life out there can’t speak up, so we need to. Some things are too precious to risk.”
Glenn Walker, Head of Nature at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, added: “Woodside’s dirty gas project at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, threatening thousands of species, including the extremely vulnerable green sea turtles that nest there. By literally flipping off Woodside and Big Gas, Aussies are cutting through corporate spin and sending an unignorable message to Environment Minister Murray Watt and the Albanese government: save Scott Reef.”
Adam Ferrier, co-founder of Thinkerbell, said: “You can fight a corporation in the courtroom forever, but the real power to deliver lasting protection rests in parliament. Right now, our MPs hold an extraordinary opportunity to safeguard Scott Reef for generations to come. I’m proudly from WA, and I know how much the natural environment means to the people and economy of Western Australia. I’m also sure Woodside wants to do the right thing, and with enough public support and government action we’ll together save Scott Reef.
Paul Swann, Chief Creative Tinker at Thinkerbell notes: “When the stakes are this high, polite ads don’t work. You need an unignorable provocation that galvanises people and puts the pressure squarely where it belongs, on our leaders in Canberra. This isn’t just about protecting a reef; it’s about holding power to account.”
Greenpeace has been campaigning to stop Woodside’s dirty gas plans for years, increasing pressure on the Australian government to save Scott Reef from becoming an industrialised gas zone. From actions aboard Woodside’s gas platform to cinemas across Australia, Greenpeace isn’t backing off in their advocacy to save Scott Reef.
Rolling out across OOH, digital, social and cinema with an interactive landing page, this project will be amplified by high-profile figures urging Australians to take action, tag their MPs, and defend Scott Reef. The movement combines cinematic storytelling with organic social mobilsation and earned media, planned via Thinkerbell’s Alchemy model to drive real behaviour change and impact.
Marking their first Australian tour in 15 years, English rock band Radiohead will play 16 arena shows across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in May and June 2027. A $2 donation is included in every ticket price with proceeds going to Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Radiohead will match the final amount raised.
ENDS
WATCH NOW:
FOR ASSETS OR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Adam Ferrier | 0413 633 344 | adamferrier@thinkerbell.com
Kimberley Bernard | 0407 581 404 | kbernard@greenpeace.org
ABOUT THINKERBELL
Thinkerbell is a 9-year-old independent creative company. We practise Measured Magic – the coming together of marketing science and hardcore creativity – to help our clients build their brands and change behaviour.
ABOUT GREENPEACE
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is a global independent campaigning organisation that uses peaceful protest and creative confrontation to expose environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
Climate Change
Jimmy Barnes, King Gizz lead Aussie music supergroup on new release to save Scott Reef
SYDNEY, Monday 9 November 2026 — Australian music icons Jimmy Barnes AO, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Fred Leone, Gordi & Montaigne are among the more than 20 Australian artists who have joined forces to release a new song with an urgent message: save Scott Reef.
Released today, “If Not Now” is a reimagining of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Environmental Music Prize-winning song “If Not Now, Then When?”, and is a collaboration between Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Green Music Australia, and p(doom) Records.
Scott Reef is a 15-million-year-old ancient coral reef located 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia. It is Australia’s largest oceanic reef and is home to thousands of marine animals and endangered species, but fossil fuel corporation Woodside plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells under and around the reef, threatening to turn it into an industrial gas zone.
“If Not Now” is the reef’s first and only release, out on all digital platforms and on limited edition 7” vinyl. The song is accompanied by cover art and visualiser from acclaimed Australian artist and ARIA-winning music video director Jonathan Zawada (Flume, The Avalanches).
Speaking about the track, Stu Mackenzie (lead singer, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard) said: “Why are we still digging up coal and gas? Why are we allowing this? Why is the Australian government so hell-bent on destroying our beautiful wild and untouched places? I’m proud that a King Gizz song was chosen to represent a growing movement of people who are asking these questions and applying pressure. Let’s shut it down and keep it beautiful.”
Rock legend Jimmy Barnes AO said: “Scott Reef is one of the few pristine reefs left in the world and it happens to be on our doorstep. We’re custodians of it — we’re supposed to be looking after it. It’s ridiculous. We must protect our country and look after what we value most, which is the nature and the beauty of this country.”
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “I’m filled with hope by the incredible musicians and artists who are using their voices and skills to amplify the voices of half a million Australians who are calling on the government to stop Woodside’s nature and climate-wrecking gas plans and save Scott Reef. Australian music has long been a powerful catalyst for change, so saving Scott Reef is a no-brainer for Australian music lovers.”
Contributing artists (in alphabetic order):
- Alex Lahey
- Brinkley Davies (marine biologist/freediver)
- Birdland
- Close Counters
- DOBBY
- Fred Leone (Artist of the Year at the 2026 NIMAs, singing in Butculla)
- Gordi
- John Butler
- Jimmy Barnes
- King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
- Leah Senior
- Mahalia Barnes
- Montaigne
- Ngaiire
- NIDALA
- Peppa Lane (Spacey Jane)
- Ruby Rodgers (2026 Environmental Music Prize winner)
- Terry Guyula (Drifting Clouds, singing in Yolgu Matha)
- Tom Mahler (The Moving Stills)
- Urthboy
Production cast:
- Becki Whitton (G Flip, Allday, Stella Donnelly)
- Stu McKenzie (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard)
- Tay Blunt (FVNERAL)
- Tim Shiel (Green Music Australia)
Three generations of the Barnes family, Jimmy Barnes, his daughter, Mahalia Barnes and granddaughter Ruby Rodgers, contributed to the track.
The release comes amid growing national pressure on the Federal Government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s gas drilling plans.
Last week, a leaked letter from WA’s environmental watchdog to Woodside revealed the agency deemed drilling risks to Scott Reef ‘serious, significant and irreversible’, while Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists occupied a major Woodside gas platform, and Perth communities delivered one of the biggest environmental petitions in Australia’s history to Woodside HQ.
The Federal Government is expected to make a decision on Woodside’s Scott Reef drilling plans in the coming months.
-ENDS-
Media contact
To arrange an interview or for more information, contact Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org
High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here (NEW) and here.
Jimmy Barnes, King Gizz lead Aussie music supergroup on new release to save Scott Reef
What might a high-school course look like if it helped students understand climate change—and see a place for themselves in responding to it?
Not simply a course about emissions or environmental problems. A course that connects science with the places students know, the decisions their communities face, and the work they might one day do.
Canadian schools already teach climate change and environmental responsibility, including through required curriculum expectations. Ontario’s Grade 9 science course, for example, asks students to assess climate change’s effects on ecosystems and communities, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. Across Canada, however, the depth and placement of climate learning vary, and opportunities for more specialized study often sit within elective courses.
Part 1 explored how we could build on that foundation through sustained learning from elementary school onward, shaped with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis governments, educators, and education authorities.
One next step worth considering is a required senior-secondary course that brings these threads together. Imagine a course called Climate, Land, and Future Economies: a place to explore climate evidence, community resilience, Indigenous governance, practical solutions, and the possibilities of a changing world.
The idea is not to turn every student into a climate scientist. It is to give every student a stronger foundation for the choices ahead—whether their path leads to university, college, an apprenticeship, employment, entrepreneurship, public service, or work within their own Nation or community.
Start with the science—and make room for questions
A meaningful course would begin with sound science: how the greenhouse effect works, how carbon moves through living systems, how energy choices affect emissions, and how scientists study a changing climate.
But the learning could become more engaging when students have an opportunity to investigate questions close to home.
What can local weather records tell us? How do we distinguish a single unusual season from a longer-term trend? What does a climate projection mean for a community planning its roads, housing, or water systems? What can a dataset tell us—and what remains outside its scope?
These questions invite students into the process of understanding evidence rather than asking them simply to memorize conclusions.
They also create space to discuss uncertainty honestly. Students could explore how researchers reach conclusions, why findings sometimes change, and how to distinguish a legitimate scientific question from a misleading claim.
The aim would be informed curiosity: the confidence to ask good questions, find credible information, and explain what the evidence supports.
Look at climate through the life of a community
Climate learning becomes more meaningful when it moves beyond global averages and into the places people live.
A class might explore a neighbourhood with little shade, a community concerned about flooding, or the choices involved in preparing a school for extreme heat. Students could examine a local emergency plan, speak with community planners, or investigate how housing and transportation decisions affect environmental risk.
The questions soon become as much about people as about climate.
Who has access to a cool, safe place during a heat wave? Who can leave when an evacuation is ordered? What happens when roads, water systems, or food supplies are disrupted? What resources does a community need to prepare?
A course could help students explore how housing, health, income, disability, infrastructure, and access to services shape people’s experiences of environmental change. It could also introduce environmental racism and historic dispossession through carefully researched cases, giving students a way to understand why risks and resources are not always distributed fairly.
That approach would connect climate learning with civic life. Students would begin to see that resilience is not only about stronger buildings or better technology. It is also about relationships, public services, and the ability of communities to care for their members.
Recognize that climate decisions are governance decisions
Consider the questions surrounding a new transmission line, wind project, mine, protected area, or housing development.
Where should it go? Who decides? Whose knowledge informs the decision? Who benefits, and who carries the costs?
These are environmental questions, but they are also questions about governance.
A climate course offers an opportunity to introduce Treaty relationships, Indigenous rights and title, consent, and jurisdiction through specific places and decisions. Rather than presenting these concepts as a single checklist, students could explore the Nations, agreements, histories, and legal frameworks relevant to the case they are studying.
Indigenous governments and communities would enter the discussion as decision-makers with their own laws, responsibilities, and priorities—not only as people affected by projects proposed elsewhere.
Learning of this kind would be strongest when developed through relationships with the relevant Nations and Indigenous education authorities. Their participation could help determine which local examples are appropriate, who should guide the learning, and what knowledge can be shared.
The purpose would not be to simplify difficult issues. It would be to help students understand why responsible decisions require attention to authority, relationships, evidence, and rights.
Explore solutions without pretending they are simple
Students deserve to encounter possibilities as well as problems.
Home retrofits, renewable energy, public transit, ecological restoration, local food systems, repair businesses, flood planning, and community emergency preparedness all offer starting points for investigation.
A class could compare options for improving the school building. Another might study a community-owned energy proposal or explore what would make a neighbourhood safer during extreme heat.
The interesting learning lies in looking beneath the label. Calling something “green” tells us little on its own. What does it accomplish? What materials and energy does it require? Who owns it? What effects might it have on land, water, workers, or neighbouring communities?
Students could learn to ask:
- Does this reduce emissions, strengthen resilience, or both?
- What environmental benefits and harms need to be considered?
- How are Indigenous rights and jurisdiction addressed?
- Who participates in decisions, and who receives the benefits?
- What alternatives or trade-offs deserve a closer look?