LULUCF actions in EU Member States

www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu
LULUCF actions in EU Member States
as reported under Article 10 of the LULUCF Decision
Kamila Paquel, 6 November, COP23 - Bonn

Outline
• Policy and legal context
• Project background and aims
• Methodology
• General findings
• Main areas of intervention
• Policy instruments used to support the actions
• Mitigation potential of actions: challenge of data availability
• Potential enhanced mitigation actions
• Summary - conclusions

Policy and legal context
• Decision No 529/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council
(LULUCF Decision)
‒ Establishes accounting rules on GHG emissions and removals
‒ Requires information on LULUCF actions at national level and their estimated impacts
(Article 10)
• Paris Agreement
‒ Long term climate mitigation objectives achieved with a contribution from the LULUCF
sector
• EU post 2020 climate and energy framework
‒ Inclusion of LULUCF mitigation in EU action to deliver Paris commitments
‒ Continuation of the reporting obligations in alignment with UNFCCC requirements
(streamlining)
‒ Governance of the Energy Union: climate plans (targets, policies and measures) and Long-
term low emission strategies, including LULUCF

Project background and aims
• Project developed by IEEP, Ricardo-AEA, and Wageningen
Environmental Research (Alterra) for DG CLIMA of the European
Commission
• Project start: May 2017, finish: November 2017
• Aims:
‒ to analyse the LULUCF action initial reports (submitted by the Member
States to the Commission in 2014 or 2015) and progress reports
(submitted in 2016)
‒ to enhance the understanding of the strategic and forward-looking
aspects of LULUCF-related policies in the EU
‒ to generate understanding of the potential for enhanced LULUCF
mitigation action

Methodology
Review of the (initial and progress) reports based
on a set of indicators (e.g. scope, sources of
finance, aim, impact)
Synthesis – creation of a database with
information extracted from the 51 reports
Analysis of the results to answer a set of research
questions, supported with literature review and
expert judgment
Consolidation of findings – final study
preparation and outreach

General findings
• Some 679 measures and policies
identified in the reports
• Wide array of ongoing and planned
activities
• Heterogeneous level of detail and of
types of information
• Most frequently reported areas and
subareas of intervention:
‒ Forest management,
‒ Protection against natural disturbances
‒ Afforestation and reforestation
‒ Biodiversity/nature conservation
measures
‒ Biomass for energy use
‒ Grassland, grazing land and/or pasture
management
‒ Nutrient, tillage and water
management
‒ Conservation of carbon in existing
forests
‒ Restoration of degraded land
‒ Organic farming
‒ Substitution of GHG intensive materials
with harvested wood products (HWP)
(excluding energy feedstocks)

Main areas of intervention (1/6)
22
23
25
28
69
71
91
92
150
152
174
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Substitute of GHG intensive…
Organic farming
Nutrient, tillage and water…
Biodiversity/nature…
Afforestation and…
Forest management

Main areas of intervention (2/6)
distribution per EU Member State
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
AT BE BG HR CY CZ DK EE FI FR DE EL HU IE IT LV LT LU MT NL PL RO SI SK ES SE UK
Forest management Protection against natural disturbances in forests
Afforestation and reforestation Biomass for energy use
Grassland, grazing land, pasture management Conservation of carbon in existing forests
Organic farming Restoration of degraded land
Substitute of GHG intensive materials with HWP Biodiversity/nature conservation measures
Numbers reflect
granularity of reporting
rather than level of effort

Conservation of carbon in forests (3/6)
Forest Carbon Farms in Poland
• Government project consisting in an
enhanced forest management on
designated areas (initially 26 forest
districts of the State Forests, with a
total surface area of more than 20 000
ha).
• Aim: to increase public awareness of
the role of forests in climate mitigation;
and improve knowledge and tools for
data collection and measurement of
“the forest carbon balance”.
• The project is currently in its pilot
stage, implemented by the State
Forests Holding.
Photo credit: BULiGL Bialystok

Grassland management (4/6)
Submerged drains in pastures on peat soils in the Netherlands
• an innovative solution to reduce CO2
emissions from peat subsidence on Dutch
peat soils used as permanent pastures for
dairy farming.
• The submerged drains are installed around
15 cm below ditchwater levels so that the
water can be infiltrated to rewet the soil in
dry periods when the groundwater levels go
below the ditchwater levels.
• There is a vast potential for carbon emission
reduction linked to this action as the
emissions from decomposition of peat soils
are estimated at about 20 ton/ha/year of
CO2 .
• The use of submerged drains is currently in a
pilot stage in a number of areas in the
Netherlands.
Photo credit: Wageningen Environmental Research

Substitute of GHG intensive materials with HWP (5/6)
Tall Wooden Buildings Plan in France
• Part of the “Wood Industries Plan” launched
in 2014 by the French president.
• The ambition of the plan is to construct 30-
storey wooden buildings by 2030 and by
consequence allow France to become a
world pioneer in the field of tall wooden
constructions.
• An initial step is to demonstrate that the
construction of tall buildings made of wood
is feasible and to spread the relevant
technical solutions by constructing 36 large
scale "showcase" buildings by 2018.
• According to the Plan, there will be French
tall wooden buildings constructed also
beyond the French borders.
Photo credit: Batijournal

Biodiversity/nature
conservation
e.g. rehabilitation of moorland,
protection and management of
Natura 2000 network, shelter belt
restoration
Forest management
e.g. enhancing production in
forests, forest certification,
construction of roads, sustainable
forest management
Nutrient, tillage, and water
management
e.g. conservation tillage, organic
farming, improved management
of water resources, return of
organic matter to soil
Afforestation, reforestation
and avoiding deforestation
e.g. dedicated afforestation plans,
rural development measures,
climate acts and policies
Biomass for energy use
e.g. promotion of use of woody
biomass, Heat Fund, biomass
action plan, energy advisory and
training services
Restoration of degraded land
e.g. restoration of land damaged
by: erosion, fire, peat extraction;
laws on land reclamation

Policy instruments used to support the actions (1/4)
• Majority of actions supported
with economic incentives,
particularly grant funding
‒ Common Agricultural Policy funds
‒ To smaller extent also other EU
funds e.g. LIFE
• Plans and strategies
‒ National Renewable Energy Action
Plans
‒ Cross-sectoral strategies
• Legal requirements
‒ Forest codes, EU law e.g. Nitrates
Directive
Economic incentive
Plan or strategy
Legal requirements and standards
Other voluntary initiatives
Information/awareness raising
Other/not specified

Common Agricultural Policy
• CAP funds are the main funding sources of the reported LULUCF
actions
Pillar I: greening
and cross
compliance
• the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund, EAGF
• e.g. requirements to maintain permanent pasture, and to establish and
maintain ecological focus areas
Pillar II: rural
development
programmes
• the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, EAFRD
• e.g. agri-environment-climate commitments, forest investment, and
forest-environmental and climate services
• high degree of flexibility in terms of choice of climate actions; but also
competition with other rural development priorities

Forestry policies
• National forestry policies shaped in part to reflect the concept
of sustainable forest management
• Multi-functional forests often mentioned by the Member States
‒ forests as providers of goods and services, including biomass for energy and
other commercial uses, and climate mitigation
• Forest management as the most frequently reported LULUCF activity
covering a broad range of actions
‒ including many designed to enhance forest productivity and resilience to fires
• A bulk of forestry policy implementation actions are supported under
the CAP.

other instruments
• Additional EU policy instruments reported by the Member States as
encouraging the LULUCF actions include:
‒ LIFE programme, Cohesion Fund
‒ Natura 2000 legislation,
‒ Nitrates Directive,
‒ INSPIRE Directive, and
‒ Renewable Energy Directive.
• Only a few policy tools designed at national level e.g. fiscal instruments
to encourage a higher biomass uptake
• Little sign of going beyond the minimum compliance to maximise GHG
impacts of actions

Mitigation potential of actions:
challenge of land use data availability
• The Article 10 Reports provide only little information about the
methodologies to monitor land use applied by the Member States
• The latest findings from other studies show that most Member States use
spatially explicit data for grazing land and cropland activities for the
purposes of their National Inventory Reports submitted under UNFCCC in
2017
‒ No harmonised approach
‒ Increasing but still limited use of the existing Earth Observation tools
• Significant challenges in terms of land use data availability hampering the
feasibility/ accuracy of mitigation potential estimates
• Opportunities for improvement of data availability (both land use and GHG
emission related) in the future

Potential enhanced mitigation actions
• What actions could be enhanced (=> fostered beyond the current
practices) in order to pursue their mitigation potential post 2020?
• The reports generally do not provide much information on possible future
enhancements; but there is a wide array of enhanced actions that could
be considered for implementation in the future
• In forestry: forest management, avoiding deforestation, and increased
use of harvested wood products for non-energy purposes seem to carry
the highest potential for enhancement (based on the reports and literature
review)
• In agriculture: soil carbon sequestration on large areas across the EU,
including reducing emissions from organic soils have the highest
identified potential for enhancement. (based on the reports and literature
review)

Summary - conclusions
• EU Member States take positive actions to pursue the LULUCF’s mitigation
potential – a wide variety of activities mainly in forestry and agriculture
• We are at an early stage in expertise on quantifying the impacts
‒ the underlying challenge of land use data availability requires further attention
‒ but we can expect this to change following the inclusion of LULUCF in the EU
target framework
• Common Agricultural Policy is a critical driver of LULUCF actions in the EU,
any future CAP reforms may be key to the extent and effectiveness of
LULUCF actions post 2020
• Adopting long term strategies framing LULUCF actions could be beneficial
from cost-efficiency, environmental integrity, and climate integrity
perspectives

kpaquel@ieep.eu
mnesbit@ieep.eu
Thank you

LULUCF actions in EU Member States

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