Panel discussion on trade-offs between forest use, climate mitigation and society

Abstract

Time window for the success in the restricting global warming under 2°C is closing rapidly. The Paris Agreement calls for even more stringent measures. We need urgent and effective measures for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and strengthening carbon sinks. The lively political discussions observed both at national level and EU/international level on how climate objectives could be fulfilled together with other needs of societies ask for clear messages from scientific community.

Most of the mitigation scenarios show the temperature overshooting or rely on significant amount of ‘negative emissions’ during latter part of the 21st century. Currently, increasing forest and land carbon stocks are the most cost-efficient and feasible carbon dioxide removal measures to generate the negative emissions required. Scenarios striving for the objectives of Paris Agreement show already in mid-century considerable increase in use of bioenergy. The pressure of simultaneous increased forest and land carbon stocks and increased biomass harvest for energy and materials illuminates the need for dedicated analyses of mitigation options and possible trade-offs between these two sub-objectives.

In this symposium, we seek answers for these questions through four different topics. In order to stabilize global warming under 2 °C, 1) what is the potential of so called natural climate solutions, and 2) what is the potential of bioenergy to decarbonize the energy sector. Considering the alternative ways to use biomass as natural carbon sink or substitute for non-renewable raw materials, 3) can material use of wood provide more climate benefits than energy use of wood, and 4) what are the trade-offs between forest management as natural climate solutions to sequester carbon and forest management as the source of raw materials for substitutions of non-renewable raw materials