Timber cities ‘could cut 100bn tons of CO2 emissions by 2100’

Study is first to analyse scale of emissions cuts possible from large-scale transition to ‘timber cities’. Photograph: Roger Bamber/Alamy

Building new urban homes from wood instead of concrete and steel could save about 10% of the carbon budget needed to limit global heating to 2C this century, according to a new study.

The overhaul of construction practices needed for such a shift would require up to 149m hectares of new timber plantations – and an increase in harvests from unprotected natural forests – but it need not encroach on farmland, according to the paper by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).