Setting the forest reference levels in the European Union: overview and challenges.
Accounting
Climate change mitigation
Climate target
Forest management
Forest reference level
Reporting
Journal
Carbon balance and management
ISSN: 1750-0680
Titre abrégé: Carbon Balance Manag
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101271519
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
31 Jul 2021
31 Jul 2021
Historique:
received:
21
04
2021
accepted:
12
07
2021
entrez:
31
7
2021
pubmed:
1
8
2021
medline:
1
8
2021
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
The contribution of EU forests to climate change mitigation in 2021-2025 is assessed through the Forest Reference Levels (FRLs). The FRL is a projected country-level benchmark of net greenhouse gas emissions against which the future net emissions will be compared. The FRL models the hypothetical development of EU forest carbon sink if the historical management practices were continued, taking into account age dynamics. The Member States' FRLs have been recently adopted by the European Commission with the delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/268 amending the Regulation (EU) 2018/841. Considering the complexity of interactions between forest growth, management and carbon fluxes, there is a need to understand uncertainties linked to the FRL determination. We assessed the methodologies behind the modelled FRLs and evaluated the foreseen impact of continuation of management practices and age dynamics on the near-future EU27 + UK forest carbon sink. Most of the countries implemented robust modelling approaches for simulating management practices and age dynamics within the FRL framework, but faced several challenges in ensuring consistency with historical estimates. We discuss that the projected 16% increase in harvest in 2021-2025 compared to 2000-2009, mostly attributed to age dynamics, is associated to a decline of 18% of forest sink (26% for living biomass only). We conclude that the FRL exercise was challenging but improved the modelling capacity and data availability at country scale. The present study contributes to increase the transparency of the implementation of forest-related EU policies and provides evidence-based support to future policy development.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
The contribution of EU forests to climate change mitigation in 2021-2025 is assessed through the Forest Reference Levels (FRLs). The FRL is a projected country-level benchmark of net greenhouse gas emissions against which the future net emissions will be compared. The FRL models the hypothetical development of EU forest carbon sink if the historical management practices were continued, taking into account age dynamics. The Member States' FRLs have been recently adopted by the European Commission with the delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/268 amending the Regulation (EU) 2018/841. Considering the complexity of interactions between forest growth, management and carbon fluxes, there is a need to understand uncertainties linked to the FRL determination.
RESULTS
RESULTS
We assessed the methodologies behind the modelled FRLs and evaluated the foreseen impact of continuation of management practices and age dynamics on the near-future EU27 + UK forest carbon sink. Most of the countries implemented robust modelling approaches for simulating management practices and age dynamics within the FRL framework, but faced several challenges in ensuring consistency with historical estimates. We discuss that the projected 16% increase in harvest in 2021-2025 compared to 2000-2009, mostly attributed to age dynamics, is associated to a decline of 18% of forest sink (26% for living biomass only).
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that the FRL exercise was challenging but improved the modelling capacity and data availability at country scale. The present study contributes to increase the transparency of the implementation of forest-related EU policies and provides evidence-based support to future policy development.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34331610
doi: 10.1186/s13021-021-00185-4
pii: 10.1186/s13021-021-00185-4
pmc: PMC8325867
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
23Informations de copyright
© 2021. The Author(s).
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