Harmonised statistics and maps of forest biomass and increment in Europe.

Forest biomass is an essential resource in relation to the green transition and its assessment is key for the sustainable management of forest resources. Here, we present a forest biomass dataset for Europe based on the best available inventory and satellite data, with a higher level of harmonisation and spatial resolution than other existing data. This database provides statistics and maps of the forest area, biomass stock and their share available for wood supply in the year 2020, and statistics on gross and net volume increment in 2010-2020, for 38 European countries.

The role of forests in the EU climate policy: are we on the right track?

Background: The European Union (EU) has committed to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This requires a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ensuring that any remaining emissions are balanced through CO removals. Forests play a crucial role in this plan: they are currently the main option for removing CO from the atmosphere and additionally, wood use can store carbon durably and help reduce fossil emissions.

Setting the forest reference levels in the European Union: overview and challenges.

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.

Abrupt increase in harvested forest area over Europe after 2015.

Forests provide a series of ecosystem services that are crucial to our society. In the European Union (EU), forests account for approximately 38% of the total land surface. These forests are important carbon sinks, and their conservation efforts are vital for the EU's vision of achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

On the realistic contribution of European forests to reach climate objectives.

A recent article by Luyssaert et al. (Nature 562:259-262, 2018) analyses the climate impact of forest management in the European Union, considering both biogeochemical (i.e.

Science-based approach for credible accounting of mitigation in managed forests.

Background: The credibility and effectiveness of country climate targets under the Paris Agreement requires that, in all greenhouse gas (GHG) sectors, the accounted mitigation outcomes reflect genuine deviations from the type and magnitude of activities generating emissions in the base year or baseline. This is challenging for the forestry sector, as the future net emissions can change irrespective of actual management activities, because of age-related stand dynamics resulting from past management and natural disturbances. The solution implemented under the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020) was accounting mitigation as deviation from a projected (forward-looking) "forest reference level", which considered the age-related dynamics but also allowed including the assumed future implementation of approved policies.

Modelling forest carbon stock changes as affected by harvest and natural disturbances. II. EU-level analysis.

Background: Forests and the forest sector may play an important role in mitigating climate change. The Paris Agreement and the recent legislative proposal to include the land use sector in the EU 2030 climate targets reflect this expectation. However, greater confidence on estimates from national greenhouse gas inventories (GHGI) and more comprehensive analyses of mitigation options are needed to seize this mitigation potential.

Modelling forest carbon stock changes as affected by harvest and natural disturbances. I. Comparison with countries' estimates for forest management.

Background: According to the post-2012 rules under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries that are signatories to the protocol have to estimate and report the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from forest management (FM), with the option to exclude the emissions associated to natural disturbances, following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. To increase confidence in GHG estimates, the IPCC recommends performing verification activities, i.e.

EU mitigation potential of harvested wood products.

Background: The new rules for the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector under the Kyoto Protocol recognized the importance of Harvested Wood Products (HWP) in climate change mitigation. We used the Tier 2 method proposed in the 2013 IPCC KP Supplement to estimate emissions and removals from HWP from 1990 to 2030 in EU-28 countries with three future harvest scenarios (constant historical average, and +/-20% in 2030).

Results: For the historical period (2000-2012) our results are consistent with other studies, indicating a HWP sink equal on average to -44.