Emojis are catching up with the devastating threat posed by climate change — with a new symbol of a leafless tree set to debut next year.
The chilling image was proposed two years ago to provide a graphic representation of a “dead” or “dying” tree for text messages, Bloomberg reported Saturday.
It was approved earlier this year by the Unicode Consortium, a California-based nonprofit organization which develops and promotes software standards.
“That something from 2022 … is still relevant today actually speaks to the longstanding relevancy of the concept,” Jennifer Daniel, chair of the consortium’s emoji subcommittee, told Bloomberg. “Because two years in digital space might as well be 200 years.”
The proposal was submitted by Brian Baihaki, who said usage of the emoji would likely be high because dry seasons and prolonged droughts were becoming “more and more common” around the world.
“Leafless trees literally represent droughts or winter and metaphorically indicate a state of barrenness and death,” Baihaki wrote.
Scott Varda, an associate professor of communication at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, told Bloomberg that the emoji “has the possibility to create awareness of climate change as a problem.”
But he also expressed concern that it won’t “fix any of the larger messaging issues” about rising global temperatures, which the United Nations has called “the single biggest threat facing humanity.”
“The impacts are already harming health through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, food insecurity and pressures on mental health,” according to the U.N. website. “Every year, environmental factors take the lives of around 13 million people.”
The leafless tree icon is one of seven new emojis that will be available on cellphones during the first half of 2025, Bloomberg said.
The others are a face with bags under its eyes, a fingerprint, a radish, a harp, a shovel and a purple splatter.
