Center for international Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo
 

 

Cicerone 4-2005:

Updated October 18, 2005

Significant CO2 removal in Norwegian forests

 


 

Figure 1. Emissions and removal of greenhouse gases from land use and land-use change in Norway. Gg CO2 equivalents (negative sign is removal, positive sign is emission).

 

Each year, Norwegian forests sequester enough CO2 to equal 40 percent of Norway’s emissions of greenhouse gases, according to a recent report. How is the forest able to sequester so much CO2, and can this count towards meeting Norway’s Kyoto targets?

By Kristin Rypdal

 

The estimates for how much CO2 Norwegian forests are able to remove from the atmosphere are given in a new joint report released by the Norwegian Institute of Land Inventory (NIJOS), Statistics Norway, and CICERO.

Human activity affects the way land is used. Roads and new residential areas are built at the expense of agricultural and forest areas. On the

other hand, reduced grazing land in outlying areas has led to an increase in vegetation and eventually larger forest areas. Agricultural areas change their form of production or are abandoned. Carbon is stored in soil and in the trunks, branches, and roots of trees. Land-use change thus leads to a change in carbon storage, and indirectly to emissions and removal of CO2. Carbon removal in Norway from land-use change is, however, relatively small compared to the removal by existing forests. It is also difficult to measure. Changes in forest management practices, especially decreased logging, has led to an increase in the wood volume and carbon stored in soils in existing forest areas. This is what contributes to the bulk of the carbon sequestration. Climate change (warmer temperatures) and the supply of nitrogen also contribute to increasing woody biomass and forest areas, but it is not possible to say how much of the carbon removal is caused by these factors compared to changes in forest management practices. Figure 1 shows the greenhouse gas budget for forests and other land use in Norway for 2003. The largest source of emissions is farmed organic soils, which releases 2 million tons of CO2 per year.

The removal, which equals about 21 tons of CO2 per year, cannot fully be credited in the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol requires Parties to include removals and emissions of greenhouse gases from afforestation and reforestation of new areas and deforestation of existing forest areas throughout the commitment period 2008-2012. These are activities that are not expected to constitute a particularly large net carbon removal for Norway. But the Protocol also allows countries to claim credits for CO2 removals from forest management implemented in existing forest areas. The Protocol allows Norway to claim credits for up to 1.5 million tons per year in the period 2008-2012, equivalent to three percent of the emissions level in 1990, from such areas. The Parties can also claim credits for measures to increase removals or reduce emissions from agricultural soil and other vegetation. The Bondevik administration has specified that it does not wish to take advantage of the opportunity to claim credits for removals from normal forest management (see St. meld. no. 15, 2001-2002). It has not taken a position on whether it wishes to include agricultural soil or other vegetation. In the course of next year, the government must make a final decision on whether it wishes to claim credits for these types of forest management measures (as well as measures implemented in agriculture or other land uses) and communicate this decision to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the end of 2006.

There has been discussion about to what degree carbon removal in forests is verifiable enough to be counted as a valid climate measure. For Norway, the estimates are largely based on data from the forest inventory carried out by NIJOS. The increase in removals from existing forest areas is thus measured with great certainty, and use of data from NIJOS ensures that carbon storage in forests can be traced over time, thus monitoring whether the removal that Norway gets credit for is permanent. However, there is greater uncertainty connected to changes in carbon in agricultural and forest soil because fewer measurements of carbon in soil have been taken and the models are poorly developed. Nor can the land inventory always capture land-use changes on smaller scales, such as road construction or construction of smaller residential areas. Moreover, the land inventory does not currently cover areas in the proximity of the tree line or Finnmark. This means that increased removals in these areas are not reflected in the calculations. The joint report from NIJOS, Statistics Norway and CICERO concludes that the bulk of emissions and removal data from Norway have a high degree of certainty, but that there is a need for further development of data collection to fully satisfy the reporting requirements and to reduce remaining uncertainty.

Reference

CICERO, NIJOS and Statistics Norway. (Stein Tomter, Terje Gobakken, Harald Aalde, Ketil Flugsrud, Vilni Verner Holst Bloch, Britta Hoem og Kristin Rypdal). Emissions and removals of GHG from land use land-use change and forestry in Norway. NIJOS-rapport 11. ISBN 82-7464-352-6.

Originally published at:  http://www.cicero.uio.no/