Project

Valuation of climate protection options

Involved Institutes HF Institute of Wood Research WO Institute of Forest Ecosystems

Valuation of climate protection options in the forest sector

The forest sector (forestry including timber processing) contributes to carbon storage and emission reduction by the sequestration of carbon in forests, in harvested wood products as well as by substituting fossil fuel. This contribution can be further optimized, provided that knowledge about carbon cycles and climate efficiency of several of the options for climate protection in the sector can be extended.

Background and Objective

In order to reach national climate protection targets, different measures to improve the carbon footprint of the forest sector are defined. They include various options for action, for example changed rotation periods and increased use of wood for construction. The measures are analysed with respect to their climate impact and abatement costs.

Target Group

Policy, Science

Approach

We want to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the climate protection measures with the help of a model-like depiction of reality. The purpose of the modeling is to make reality comprehensible, since real-world experiments are not feasible.

Data and Methods

For our analysis we develop physical as well as monetary input-output tables for the forest sector.

Our Research Questions

-How are different forest measures be valuated with regard to carbon sequestration and abatement costs?
-Which impact have the system boundaries considered (forest – harvested wood products – material & energetic substitution) on carbon sequestration and abatement costs?

Results

We defined different measures for the German forest sector. These were analysed according to their climate impact and their abatement costs. Furthermore, we constructed a physical and a monetary input-output table for the forest sector.