Australia needs to create new forest plantations the size of the ACT every year if it is to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to new modelling that shows the scale of economic transformation required to meet the ambitious mid-century target.

The mass planting or regrowth of forests, known as reforestation, is expected to be a major source of Australia’s emissions reduction over the next two decades, but will need to increase by a factor of at least 100 over that period to meet government forecasts, the study found.

The warning by a group of academics at the universities of Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton in the US is based on separate forecasts of new forest growth required to meet net zero emissions by Treasury and the CSIRO.

The modelling, which is more conservative than Treasury estimates, found that Australia would need about 200,000 hectares of new or regrowth forests every year to achieve the land sector emissions reductions required to meet net zero.

Those new plantations would need to be about the size of the Australian Capital Territory and would require long-term funding, co-ordination and regional-level planning to avoid major disruption in agricultural communities, the academics said.

The findings are part of the forward-looking, multi-year Net Zero Australia modelling project, which is funded by energy companies including gas pipeliner APA Group, gentailer Energy Australia and global renewables developer Iberdrola.

The project is advised by a range of energy and climate groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation, the National Farmers Federation, the National Native Title Council and the St Vincent de Paul Society. It uses publicly available data to assess progress towards net zero.

The study aims to be technology-neutral, evidence-driven and apolitical.

According to the new NZA report, the rollout of household and grid-scale batteries is well on track, as is the uptake of electric and hybrid vehicles and the build-out of new poles and wire infrastructure to connect new renewables to the power grid.

However, Australia remained well off track to achieve the 2050 goal, which would not be met until at least 2065 under current policies, the academics said.

The sluggish growth of carbon capture and land sector carbon removal projects, big wind and solar farms and investment in new gas power generation to back them up are all key handbrakes on Australia’s climate plans.

Chris Greig, a research scientist at Princeton University, said turbocharging carbon removal projects and shoring up the grid with gas generation were critical to achieving the 2050 target.

“Land sector abatement and firming generation are currently off track, and these are not optional components of a net zero system,” said Greig.

“We need [carbon capture and storage], large-scale reafforestation, regenerative agriculture, and a much bigger commitment to firming gas generation to drive decarbonisation and maintain reliability.”

The Climate Change Authority, the government’s independent climate adviser, last month published its own report on Australia’s progress towards net zero, which said the government needed to increase the speed of the renewables rollout to keep its near-term climate targets within reach.

According to the most recent figures, Australia has reduced its carbon emissions by about 29 per cent on 2005 levels. However, most of those cuts came from the weather-related land sector cuts that are unlikely to continue at historical rates.

Andrew Macintosh, an environmental policy expert at the Australian National University, who did not work on the NZA project, said it was difficult to exaggerate how far away Australia was from the rates of reforestation required for net zero.

“We are so far away,” he said. “We’ve been losing more through deforestation and land clearing than we are planting or otherwise gaining through natural regeneration.

“It is possible to do it, but you have to do it in a way that works for landholders, otherwise it’s not going to fly.

“This is only going to work if you do it in a way that is integrated with agricultural enterprises and done in collaboration with regional and rural communities.”

Adapted from an article first published in The Australian Financial Review on 11 December 2025.