If planting trees is ineffective to tackle climate change, why do people plant them?
Planting trees has a short term benefit in carbon sequestration but will not offset the carbon from fossil fuel burning. However, in some places trees provide a benefit of increasing soil carbon which can have a longer lasting effect. Thus, one benefit is to increase the time needed to implement replacements to fossil fuels. Trees can increase cooling through greater evapotranspiration than grassland, in some climate zones. That, however, may have an impact on water resources. Wood and paper products that are not recycled remove carbon from the natural system, although the effect is small.

Burning wood instead of fossil fuels has a positive impact on the carbon budget where the carbon is recycled back into tree plantations.