Erb Karl-Heinz, Haberl Helmut, Le Noë Julia, Tappeiner Ulrike, Tasser Erich, Gingrich Simone
Institute of Social Ecology University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna Vienna Austria.
Département de Géosciences École Normale Supérieure Paris France.
Glob Change Biol Bioenergy. 2022 Mar;14(3):246-257. doi: 10.1111/gcbb.12921. Epub 2022 Jan 17.
Forest-based mitigation strategies will play a pivotal role in achieving the rapid and deep net-emission reductions required to prevent catastrophic climate change. However, large disagreement prevails on how to forge forest-based mitigation strategies, in particular in regions where forests are currently growing in area and carbon density. Two opposing viewpoints prevail in the current discourse: (1) A widespread viewpoint, specifically in countries in the Global North, favours enhanced wood use, including bioenergy, for substitution of emissions-intensive products and processes. (2) Others instead focus on the biophysical, resource-efficiency and time-response advantages of forest conservation and restoration for carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, whilst often not explicitly specifying how much wood extraction can still safeguard these ecological benefits. We here argue for a new perspective in sustainable forest research that aims at forging "no-regret" forest-based climate change mitigation strategies. Based on the consideration of forest growth dynamics and the opportunity carbon cost associated with wood use, we suggest that, instead of taking (hypothetical) wood-for-fossil substitution as starting point in assessments of carbon implications of wood products and services, analyses should take the potential and desired carbon sequestration of forests as starting point and quantify sustainable yield potentials compatible with those carbon sequestration potentials. Such an approach explicitly addresses the possible benefits provided by forests as carbon sinks, brings research on the permanence and vulnerability of C-stocks in forests, of substitution effects, as well as explorations of demand-side strategies to the forefront of research and, in particular, aligns better with the urgency to find viable climate solutions.
基于森林的缓解策略对于实现防止灾难性气候变化所需的快速、深度净减排将发挥关键作用。然而，对于如何制定基于森林的缓解策略，存在很大分歧，特别是在目前森林面积和碳密度正在增加的地区。当前的讨论中存在两种对立观点：（1）一种广泛的观点，特别是在全球北方国家，主张增加木材使用，包括生物能源，以替代排放密集型产品和工艺。（2）另一些人则侧重于森林保护和恢复在碳固存和生物多样性保护方面的生物物理、资源效率和时间响应优势，同时往往没有明确说明多少木材采伐仍能保障这些生态效益。我们在此主张在可持续森林研究中采用一种新视角，旨在制定“无悔”的基于森林的气候变化缓解策略。基于对森林生长动态以及与木材使用相关的机会碳成本的考虑，我们建议，在评估木材产品和服务的碳影响时，分析不应以（假设的）木材替代化石为起点，而应以森林的潜在和期望碳固存为起点，并量化与这些碳固存潜力相兼容的可持续产量潜力。这种方法明确解决了森林作为碳汇可能提供的益处，将关于森林中碳储量的持久性和脆弱性、替代效应以及需求侧策略探索的研究置于研究前沿，特别是更符合寻找可行气候解决方案的紧迫性。
