Activists say planting more and more trees is one of the best strategies to fight climate change, but a new French research claims the approach is false. How? It suggests dark green conifers across Europe are accelerating global warming, instead of acting against it.

A team of researchers conducted a study and found that Europe's forest management has added more carbon dioxide in the earth's environment in last about 250 years. For the study, published in the journal Science, the researchers collected data on the region's land-use history since 1750 to till date.

As per the researchers, they have included factors such as deforestation and forestation, and change in kinds of tree species planted in Europe in last more than two and half centuries. They have developed some models and studied effects of climate change on the continent.

The researchers found that Europe suffered a period of deforestation from 1750 to 1850. During that one-century time, forests in the 200,000 square kilometers were removed. They also observed that reforestation efforts helped to gain some forest area.

In the last two and half centuries, more than 80% forests of the Europe came under human management, which led to thinning of trees, the study said. The models used by the researchers showed human activities had an impact on the climate.

"European forests have failed to realize a net 1/8carbon dioxide3/8 removal from the atmosphere, and this is due to the fact that humans extracted wood from unmanaged forests by bringing these forests under management", said Kim Naudts, a researcher at the University of Versailles' Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory and lead researcher of the study.

The new study may give jolts of many governments, like China, that are planning to plant more trees to deal with climate change.