Bamboo’s potential to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change: A closer look

Transcript:

Bamboo is not just for panda bears. These tall, fast-growing plants can be used to make everything from flooring and furniture to fabric and cutting boards.

And some scientists say bamboo could also help reduce climate change.

As bamboo grows, it quickly absorbs a lot of planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Then if people use the bamboo to manufacture products like floors or furniture, that carbon stays locked in the products for a long time rather than returning to the atmosphere.

Bamboo can grow well in a variety of different environments and in degraded soils or areas where it might be challenging to grow many other crops.

And Project Drawdown, a climate research group, has suggested that bamboo could be grown on hundreds of millions of acres of degraded forestland around the world to help slow the pace of climate change.

Some types of bamboo spread aggressively and can outcompete native species, prompting concerns about growing it in more places.

But other bamboo species are less likely to become invasive, and many parts of the world have native bamboo species they could plant.

So this versatile plant could help reduce global warming.

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media