Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from households by urban woodland in Ibagué-Colombia

Abstract Trees are essential in the city to capture CO2, and, at the same time, to contribute to the mitigation of climate change. Carbon storage and fixation in aboveground biomass was estimated in the urban woodland of Ibagué with a census from 2013-2016, and a new measurement of 15% on individuals in the 2019-2020 period. The number of trees of the main species required to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from households was estimated. Urban woodland captures about 3.81 Gg CO2/year, which represents only 2,3% of the city emissions. The mitigation of 169.2 Gg CO2/year of the city households would be achieved by having between 412,000 and 1.2 million trees of the most dominant species. Efforts based on green infrastructure to compensate urban emissions at municipal level must be coordinated with territory policies at large scales.