Trade-offs in using European forests to meet climate objectives
Open accessAbstract
The Paris Agreement promotes forest management as a pathway towards halting climate warming through the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions1. However, the climate benefits from carbon sequestration through forest management may be reinforced, counteracted or even offset by concurrent management-induced changes in surface albedo, land-surface roughness, emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds, transpiration and sensible heat flux2–4. Consequently, forest management could offset CO2 emissions without halting global temperature rise. It therefore remains to be confirmed whether commonly proposed sustainable European forest-management portfolios would comply with the Paris Agreement—that is, whether they can reduce the growth rate of atmospheric CO2, reduce the radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and neither increase the near-surface air temperature nor decrease precipitation by the end of the twenty-first century. Here we show that the portfolio made up of management systems that locally maximize the carbon sink through carbon sequestration, wood use and product and energy substitution reduces the growth rate of atmospheric CO2, but does not meet any of the other criteria. The portfolios that maximize the carbon sink or forest albedo pass only one—different in each case—criterion. Managing the European forests with the objective of reducing near-surface air temperature, on the other hand, will also reduce the atmospheric CO2 growth rate, thus meeting two of the four criteria. Trade-off are thus unavoidable when using European forests to meet climate objectives. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that if present-day forest cover is sustained, the additional climate benefits achieved through forest management would be modest and local, rather than global. On the basis of these findings, we argue that Europe should not rely on forest management to mitigate climate change. The modest climate effects from changes in forest management imply, however, that if adaptation to future climate were to require large-scale changes in species composition and silvicultural systems over Europe5,6, the forests could be adapted to climate change with neither positive nor negative climate effects. Simulations of commonly proposed forest-management portfolios for Europe show that no single portfolio would meet all the requirements of the Paris Agreement, and climate benefits from forest management would be modest and local.
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Whether marginal lands will be reforested to plantations depends on additional socioeconomic and cultural values that landowners have, which can be complementary or in conflict.
“Whether such marginal lands will be reforested to plantations depends on additional socioeconomic and cultural values that landowners have, which can be complementary or in conflict (e.g., hunting, endangered species conservation, recreation, esthetics, food security) (57–59).”
From Climate-smart forestry through innovative wood products and commercial afforestation and reforestation on marginal land (2023) · cites this paper as [58]
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- Authors
- Luyssaert, S., Marie, G., Valade, A., Chen, Y.-Y., Njakou Djomo, S., Ryder, J., Otto, J., Naudts, K., Lansø, A. S., Ghattas, J., & McGrath, M. J.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Luyssaert, Sebastiaan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2018-10
- Volume
- 562
- Issue
- 7726
- Pages
- 259-262
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC6277009
- OpenAlex
- W2895492583
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 20
- FWCI
- 15.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2019-03-05)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Agritrop (Cirad) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie
- FP7 Ideas: European Research Council (242564)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Forest ecology and management
- Keywords
- forest management, climate change mitigation, carbon sequestration, Paris Agreement, European forests, trade-offs, forest albedo, surface air temperature, biogenic volatile organic compounds, climate change adaptation, forest cover, radiation balance, silviculture
- MeSH terms
- Sustainable Development, Air, Atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide, Europe, Goals, International Cooperation, Temperature, Forestry, Global Warming, Carbon Sequestration, Geographic Mapping, Forests
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