At the EU ‘Environment’ Council on Tuesday 17 March, the European ministers drew a widely shared conclusion: the current framework of the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) regulation no longer sufficiently reflects the climatic reality facing Europe’s forests and soils.
Many Member States have pointed out that Europe’s forests are currently facing an increasing number of extreme events: prolonged droughts, storms, fires and attacks by pests such as bark beetles. These phenomena greatly reduce the capacity of forests to absorb CO2, regardless of management practices (see EUROPE 13829/16).
Highly forested countries such as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and Slovenia have emphasised the scale of the uncertainties surrounding natural sinks, particularly in peat bogs and climate-sensitive ecosystems.
Rules deemed too rigid. Several delegations criticised the volatility of the LULUCF data, linked to frequent methodological adjustments and still imperfect national inventories. According to Austria and the States that support it, the annual variations in uptake figures can be very significant without any real change in forest exploitation, which undermines the credibility of the system.
France claimed that the current rules do not take sufficient account of the structural impact of climate change on forests, which collectively prevents Member States from meeting the LULUCF objectives. Paris is calling for the framework to be developed so that it remains demanding, but is better adapted to this specific sector.
Many countries (including Italy, Hungary, Spain and Slovakia) have called for natural disasters and climatic hazards to be explicitly recognised in LULUCF accounting. They say that forest managers should not be held responsible for phenomena over which they have no control. These countries are calling for the post-2030 framework to focus on long-term ecological resilience, rather than short-term capture targets based on linear trajectories inherited from the past. Delegations stressed the need to make better use of long-life wood products and the role of the bioeconomy in replacing fossil fuels.
While supporting an in-depth revision of the regulation, Luxembourg reiterated that this adaptation should in no way weaken the EU’s climate ambitions.
The Commissioner for Climate, Wopke Hoekstra, has acknowledged that climate change is already having a major impact on the natural capacity to absorb CO2. He sees the LULUCF sector as a “strategic ally” in achieving climate neutrality and reducing energy dependency, provided that it invests more in sustainable land management, biomass and bio-based materials.
A public consultation on the post-2030 climate framework is underway until 4 May, and the European Commission is inviting Member States and stakeholders to express their views, particularly on the measures to be taken in the soil sector. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)