Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

What is Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

LULUCF stands for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry. It is one of the sectors under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change that measures and accounts for emissions and removals of CO₂ from land and forests. It is an essential part of EU climate policy which aims to reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.

LULUCF is an unusual sector in that it measures not just carbon releases, but also carbon removals. This is because when a tree grows it temporarily sequesters CO₂, and when it dies or is removed, it releases the CO₂ back into the atmosphere.

Across the EU, LULUCF presently removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. This means it is a carbon sink. It also has the potential to remove more as they are presently far below their full carbon carrying capacity. But this potential can also be a danger because Member States mistakenly assume that CO₂ removals can cancel out or ‘offset’ their emissions from other sectors.

This ignores the important fact that any CO₂ removed by a tree is temporary whereas fossil fuel emissions stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years. If the EU allowed Member States to offset their emissions with LULUCF, it could reduce the EU’s target by more than 10 per cent and could lead to 1.35GT more CO₂ in the atmosphere.

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Will the EU LULUCF Regulation benefit the climate?

Fern was heavily involved in the debate about the LULUCF Regulation.

At the beginning of our campaign, Fern said the Regulation needed to do four things:

1. Be dedicated only to land use as this would stop it from reducing the EU’s overall ambition (so EU climate action would be part of three separate pillars – the LULUCF Regulation, the EU Emissions Trading System and the Effort Sharing Decision.

2. Improve rules about how to account for carbon fluctuations to make them more honest and transparent about what is going on in forests

3. Fully account for emissions from biomass energy use

4. Set a target to increase the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that forests take up (sinks) while maintaining the amount they store (stocks). 

Sadly, these objectives have only been partly achieved and the Regulation contains some major deficiencies.

Read more about the LULUCF Regulation

What does the Paris Climate Agreement say about forests?

Climate change is a global problem that requires action from all. The main international discussions on how to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects take place at the United Nations level. In 2015 an Agreement was finally achieved in Paris with the goal of keeping global temperature rises to well below 2°C. The Paris Agreement has placed forests centre-stage, since it states that carbon dioxide emissions must be balanced with removals of carbon. Forests naturally keep carbon out of the atmosphere, so many interpret the Paris Agreement as supporting forest restoration.

Restoring forests, especially if it is led by communities, can benefit the people who live in and depend on them, whilst improving ability of forests to purify water and increase biodiversity. It could be bad for the climate however if restoration is allowed to delay the more urgent need to cut fossil fuel emissions. If the Agreement increases industrial use of monoculture plantations for example, this could also damage communities and the environment.

During the Paris climate conference (the 21st Conference of the Parties known as CoP 21), Fern, Rainforest Foundation Norway and Friends of the Earth Norway released What role should land and forests play in the Paris Agreement? It argued that if we strengthen local communities’ tenure rights on forested land, keep forests standing and restore degraded forests, we can keep the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C, as long as we also reduce fossil fuel emissions to zero well before 2050.

Protecting and restoring forests would also mean there is no need for untested ‘negative emissions’ plans.