So many trees planted in Taklamakan Desert that it's turned into a carbon sink

China accounts for more than 25% of the global net increase in leaf area between 2000 and 2017, according to NASA data

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/china-has-pl...

China's also been a major supporter of the Great Green Wall of Africa providing technology and funding.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3302068/why-...

50 years in on a 70 year project. It's not sexy / monumental like the pyramids, which was built in less time.

Meanwhile the US government is abandoning the regulation of emissions that cause climate change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenho...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/12/trump-epa-ro...

Here's a video about this effort from 2013 which gives a good view on how a lot of it was done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um6Fhw841p0

I am left wondering why China is making all of these "green" changes; more renewables, planting trees at the edges of deserts, etc. I mean, I guess it could be altruistic, to help the Earth and it's people. However, I just don't see that kind of attitude coming out of China. So, again, I am left wondering what their angle is. Is it simply to "stick it" to the United States?

What is everybody's opinion on this?

I wonder how the albedo has changed, and evaporation of water there.

Planting more trees regardless of region rather than cutting them down has a profound effect on the air quality. Forests are an enormous help to carbon recycling.

Do initiatives like these hurt native desert species?

Does the title make sense? A desert should be carbon-neutral, therefore a single tree growing in the desert is enough to make it a carbon sink.

Alipay has a function called ant forest, you use the app more often, you get more credit. And when it reach certain amount, aliaba will plant a small tree in the desert. People used to be crazy about this shit, but not for now. I guess the main reason is that these effort are good activities, but it didn’t help that much, compared to the effort from the government. At least on the this topic, they did a pretty good job, it last for decades, and it will countinue.

Alipay has another function called zhima credit score, which is related to the ant forest, you can rent bikes and power banks with no deposit when you have a high score. and it’s the base block of so called ‘social credit score’ for Chinese people

This is the way

How much deforestation over the past decades has been reversed and is deforestation currently under control?

So not really a carbon sink but a carbon perimeter.

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This is not of the slightest interest to any politician in 2026.

So to plant a row of trees a bulldozer has to level sand dunes. I somehow doubt the exhaust from this process is factored into the CO2 sink calculation.