India Plants 66 Million Trees In 12 Hours And Smashes Previous World Record
India is one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, and they're solving that problem by planting a whole lot of trees. After setting the record with nearly 50 million trees last July, they followed it up with more than 66 million on Sunday.
Updated May 26 2019, 2:32 p.m. ET
India’s ongoing efforts to eliminate their carbon footprint reached their greatest height since signing onto the Paris Agreement last fall. At least 1.5 million people took part in planting over 66 million trees for an entire day in the country. This activity broke a world record that was actually previously held by India, as well.
The massive group of people started planting trees at 7:00 AM local time and continued working for the next 12 hours. Those 66.3 million trees were placed around Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh. 20 different species of saplings were planted in 24 districts around the river basin. To put it in perspective, this many people contributing is equivalent to the entire city of Phoenix or San Diego working together.
State Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted out after the event, translating to: “Thank people of Jabalpur for making tree plantation a huge success. You are not only saving narmada, but also [the] planet.” By planting these saplings near the river, they will have the best chance of sprouting into long-living trees.
This amazing operation will likely soon be a Guinness World Record. It was organized by the local government and observers were able to tally up the record-breaking numbers. The previous record was also in India at Uttar Pradesh, where nearly 50 million trees were planted just one year ago. All these planted will likely help the third-largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, only behind China and the United States.
Another reason the event was established was to push the goal of forest restoration. According to a Forbes report, $6.2 billion USD is going to be put toward 235 million acres of forests by 2030. That was an objective created by India after joining the Paris Agreement last October. The country is planning to partition 40 percent of their electric capacity coming from renewable energy by 2030.
India’s pushing their agenda to eliminate the massive carbon footprint they have along with China. They’ve set other goals such as only selling electric vehicles by 2030 to help eliminate their dangerous smog issues in urban environments. Home of the world’s biggest coal manufacturer, Coal India is also shutting down 37 coal mines in the next year, as they won’t be profitable compared to the renewable alternatives.
