Climate change mitigation

 

Summary

Sampling of the GHGs CO2, CH4 and N2O using a closed chamber at the Thetford Scots pine Intensive Forest Monitoring plot in East Anglia

Trees, woods and forests can make important contributions to the global carbon budget. This is both in terms of their potential to sequester carbon (i.e. storage of carbon in the woody components of trees) but, also, their potential to release carbon (i.e. through forest harvesting, forest fires, the natural decay of organic material). The role that forests play and how they can contribute to climate change mitigation is becoming increasingly clear as the result of numerous carbon sequestration research projects and international negotiations such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. However, there are also still several areas of uncertainty, particularly regarding how forests and wood products can be best used to off-set human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The use of trees and forest for climate change mitigation can only be optimised if the carbon and GHG stocks and flows associated with forests and wood products are better quantified.

Forest Research is working towards improving our knowledge of the GHG balance (focus on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) of different types of UK forests and the products derived from these forests in a number of specific areas. These include:

• Developing a national forest carbon and GHG inventory 
• Monitoring short-term carbon and GHG fluxes associated with woodland and preparing detailed carbon budgets
• Developing models and methodologies for carbon and GHG accounting
• Assessing the role that wood products and wood product substitution can make to the national carbon balance
• Preparing carbon budgets associated with bioenergy production from woodfuel and purpose-grown short rotation coppice
• Interpreting available information to improve the carbon and GHG balance of forest management
• Developing forest management guidelines for climate change mitigation, with the ultimate aim of incorporating into the UK Forestry Standard
• Developing an understanding of the risks associated with climate change mitigation that  involve the forestry sector, and evaluate ways to manage these risks. 

Current research projects 

Research objectives

The principal objective of this research programme is to improve our understanding of how forests and woodlands can contribute to the carbon and GHG balance at both local and global scales. The development of a national forest carbon inventory combined with quantifying the role of wood products and bioenergy in reducing GHG emissions are priorities. A second and equally important objective is to provide authoritative, impartial advice on the carbon and GHG dynamics of forests and woodlands and their role in climate change mitigation. This can only be achieved by advancing our understanding of the relative importance of forest management, soil and climatic variables on C and N cycling and therefore GHG and carbon dynamics and budgets.

Funders and partners

This research is funded primarily by the Forestry Commission Forest carbon dynamics programme.

Defra (Global Atmosphere Division) also contribute to the development of national forest carbon inventory.

We are partners of the EU FP6 CarboEurope IP, maintaining one of the network of flux stations across Europe.

We have also contributed to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Bioenergy Task 38 on 'Greenhouse gas balances of biomass and bioenergy systems'.

Forestry Commission policy

Many countries and organisations, including the UK Government, are cautious about promoting carbon sequestration as a means of reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. The size of the potential gains is uncertain and the accounting procedures complicated. Moreover, there is a limit to the amount of carbon that woodland can sequester, and there is a risk that the sequestered could be released – through, for example, felling, forest fires or outbreaks of pests and diseases.

The saving in our emission targets from carbon sequestered in UK forests can only be small. Nevertheless it is an add-on to the many other benefits that can arise from forestry as long as the forestry authorities maintain a clear commitment to sustainable forest management. We must also remain involved in the international debate to keep the principles of sustainable forestry on the agenda as the details of the Kyoto Protocol are negotiated. Providing a source of renewable energy is probably the biggest contribution that UK forests can make to reducing emissions of CO2. We will work with other parts of government, with industry and with society at large to realise this potential.

Publications

Forestry Commission Information Note 48, Forests, Carbon and Climate change: the UK contribution ^(PDF-1559K), summarises the latest thinking on forests and their carbon balance at both local and global scales.

Status

Carbon research was originally part of the yield and growth research programme, with considerable advances made in the area or carbon stock inventory methodologies between 1988 and 1998. The development of new yield models has recently improved our capacity to generate carbon inventories.

In 1998, the Straits flux station was established, and the ecophysiological aspects of carbon dynamics research have been investigated since then.

A new, Forest carbon dynamics research programme was established in 2002 providing a ‘one-stop shop’ for advice. The programme is reviewed at five-yearly intervals 

Contact

Sirwan Yamulki
Forest Research
Alice Holt Lodge
Farnham
Surrey GU10 4LH

Tel: 01420 22255
Fax: 01420 23563
Email: sirwan.yamulki@forestry.gsi.gov.uk