From Sink to Source

The German Climate Change Act assigns a special role to the sector Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF):
It is the only sector that also contains sinks, not just sources of greenhouse gases. The goal of a net sink in the LULUCF sector is prescribed by the Climate Change Act. The intent is to offset unavoidable emissions in other sectors by this net sink in the future.

Previously, the high emissions from drained organic soils in Germany have been offset by the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in forest ecosystems. Currently, however, the forest, which has been severely damaged by climate change, can no longer achieve this, so that the LULUCF sector is now also releasing large amounts of CO₂ in total. This is contrary to the legal targets.

The Climate Change Act stipulates that an average of 25 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents per year must be taken up in the LULUCF sector between 2027 and 2030. For the years 2037 to 2040, the target value for net uptake is 35 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents per year, and for the period from 2042 to 2045 it is 40 million tonnes.

Projection data from 2025 show that while forests are recovering, the LULUCF sector will remain a significant source of greenhouse gases in the future. If adopted measures are implemented as planned, emissions of around 40 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents are expected annually from 2027 to 2030. The target of a net uptakeof 25 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents will thus be missed dramatically.

In the 2024 projections, it was still assumed that sources and sinks in the LULUCF sector would approximately balance each other, meaning that the sector would be climate-neutral. According to the old projection data, the target for net inclusion would also have been missed, but by a smaller margin.

•  to the severe drought in recent years, large areas of forest have died. The results of the fourth federal forest inventory have been available since October 2024. They quantify the forest damage caused by drought and bark beetle infestation from 2018 onwards. This damage has led to the forest being a major source of CO₂ emissions instead of a sink. The latest projection shows that although the forest is recovering, it is unlikely to take up as much CO₂ in the future as it did before the years of drought.

• New data and modelling results show that mineral soils under arable use lose carbon. This emission of around seven million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent has been taken into account in the new projection.

The current development in the LULUCF sector contradicts the climate targets. The targets for 2030 are clearly missed. In addition, there is a lack of concrete implementation for some climate protection measures that have already been adopted. Even if the measures are now implemented at an accelerated pace, they would have little effect by 2030. The reason: many mitigation measures addressing land use and forests only show success in the long term. In the LULUCF sector, the focus must therefore be on long-term measures. However, their implementation must be faster and on a larger scale than before.

• Rewetting drained peatlands is the most effective measure to avoid emissions. The federal-state target agreement on climate protection through peatland soil protection and the peatland protection strategy set a mitigation target of five million tons of CO₂ equivalent annually by 2030. The rewetting of peatlands is a complex and long-term task, but the potential for carbon sequestration is considerably higher than this target.

• The phase-out of peat extraction and of the use of peat in potting soils and growing media can also avoid substantial amounts of CO₂ emissions.

• The forests that have been damaged by drought and the associated bark beetle infestation must be reforested quickly. For this purpose, fast-growing, site-adapted tree species that are resilient to climate change should be used. In this way, the CO₂ sink in forests can be improved or even restored in the long term.

• Where possible, afforestation should be realised. A considerable amount of carbon can also be quickly taken up by newly planted hedges and other agroforestry.

• The potential for increased carbon storage in wood products should be used more intensively, for example through the implementation of the timber construction initiative.