The forest-based sector: a growing European awareness

The capacity of forests to combat the greenhouse effect has been acknowledged both in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the Kyoto Protocol also takes this into account for the allocation of “carbon credits” to signatory countries. However, although forests are considered to form the main terrestrial carbon sink, how can their impact be measured? The experts meeting in Nancy recalled that research should be systemic in nature, taking account of the diversity of local situations and including the spatio-temporal dimension, because a forest will be both a source and a sink for carbon at different points in its life cycle.
Whether human management of forests enhances or possibly diminishes their effectiveness as carbon sinks is the subject of conflicting debate. For example, the collection of wood for energy may reduce the capacity of forests to sequester carbon, but on the other hand that energy is renewable and saves fossil energy.
As matters stand now, the Kyoto Protocol takes into account neither the storage of carbon in wood products nor the fact that wood requires less energy for its conversion than competing products. The experts underscored the cascade effect of the sector: forest stands capture carbon over a long cycle, and the products derived from the wood serve as a carbon reservoir and, at the end of their life, can be converted into energy. It is urgent that Europe prepare a coherent project for the period after 2012, when the  Kyoto Protocol expires.  

Forests in the “Energy Package”

Wishing to position itself as the most environmentally-friendly industrial economy, the EU has launched the “Energy Package”. Its objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and to integrate 20% of renewable sources into total energy consumption by 2020, which currently stands at 8.5%.
The forest-based sector is now part of the debate on sustainable development. “After 2012, Europe must recognise this sector as holding one answer to the climate challenges”, Michel Barnier, the French Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, pointed out. The idea is therefore to provide negotiators with the information that will enable them to describe in detail the role played by wood in the carbon cycle as a material in competition with others on the energy market.
The product range involved in the sector is currently tending to become more diversified: green chemicals, biofuels, electricity, heating, the electronics industry, etc. A windfall for the whole of the forestry industry but, as the experts emphasise, “only on condition that the sustainable management of forests can be organised”.
Valérie Merckx, from the European Commission, thus recalled that in addition to the need to create straightforward and uniform rules at Community level and to organise balanced incentive policies, “each Member State must define an overall long-term management strategy, according to its own specific characteristics”.

Video clip : Michel Barnier about Forests and climate change

© Min.Agri.Fr

• Updated: 12.11.2008

• 
• Gallery
• Back to the top