And he’d be right.
When those trees die and then rot or burn, that CO2 will be released right back into the atmosphere. They’ll temporarily hold some, yeah, but it’s like trying to rapidly fire a squirt gun at a fire when someone else is spraying it with a firehose of gasoline.
Especially because trees plant themselves. If they want to set aside the land for forest and seed it a little to get going - great - but those large tree planting operations are a waste of time at best or carbon credit loopholes at worst.
The corollary to this would be that deforestation hasn't make climate change worse, and a simple Google search tells me that:
> Deforestation plays a significant role in climate change, contributing 12–20% of global greenhouse gas emissions
Most global deforestation involves slash and burn. This releases the carbon stored in the trees. But I think that's OPs point. A growing tree doesn't remove carbon, it temporarily stores it until it dies or burns.
Trees do pull carbon out of the atmosphere, which can be stored in the form of "wood", and it doesn't re-enter the atmosphere until burnt.
The point of planting trees in Denmark is not to cut CO2 emissions. The point is to restore biodiversity and the health of the environment. I assume the situation is similar in countries like the Netherlands.
Climate and environment are two separate things, and are in fact sometimes at odds with each other. Denmark is doing semi-alright on climate, but is absolutely terrible on environment. Aquatic ecosystems in the country are basically completely destroyed by agriculture, to the point where previously productive shallow waters are completely dead due to oxygen depletion.