Forest ecosystems
The forest is one of the most important ecosystems when it comes to climate protection. This is because forests are a natural carbon sink as trees convert CO2 into oxygen via photosynthesis and incorporate the carbon into their biomass. Almost one third of the Earth's land area, more than four billion hectares, is covered by forests (FAO 2020). Germany would fit into this area over 100 times. Almost half of the forests are in the tropics, followed by the boreal, temperate and subtropical latitudes. Forests are particularly important for regulating the climate. In the EU alone, it stored an amount of carbon equivalent to almost 440 million tonnes of CO2 per year between 2010 and 2020. That is about ten percent of Europe's gross greenhouse gas emissions in this period (Forest Europe 2020).
However, there are indications that this sink capacity is declining not only in Europe but also worldwide. There are two reasons for this: Firstly, the forest area is shrinking due to deforestation, and secondly, existing forests can store less carbon. On the one hand, this is due to natural disturbances such as storms and drought, the frequency and intensity of which will increase due to climate change. On the other hand, the increasing ageing of forests in Europe is causing higher harvest rates.
Studies on the state of the forest
The State of the World’s Forests 2020 (FAO)
State of Europe’s Forests 2020
Research Projects
UBA guideline: Land use and climate protection: How land use can achieve climate protection targets
The guideline describes the role of the land use sector (LULUCF sector) for climate protection and identifies requirements for designing and using market approaches to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. The guideline aims to provide a basic understanding of the challenges of integrating the LULUCF sector into international climate policy. With this understanding, mitigation potentials in the land use sector and their upliftment through market-based incentives can be developed on a sound footing.
UBA guideline (in German only)
Landnutzung und Klimaschutz: Wie wir mit Landnutzung Klimaschutzziele erreichen können
Market mechanisms in the land use sector under the Paris Agreement
The land use sector plays a critical role in achieving the Paris Agreement goals of limiting the increase in global average temperature to well below 2° celsius and achieving a balance between greenhouse gas emissions from sources and carbon uptake by sinks in the second half of this century. This report discusses the key environmental integrity challenges of using carbon market mechanisms to implement mitigation actions in the land use sector.