An estimate of carbon stocks for harvested wood products from logs exported from New Zealand to China

Manley, Bruce; Evison, David

doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2018.03.006

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Wood in China is primarily used for short-lived purposes [ 63 ]. In this scenario, the annual emissions increased, compared to the BASE scenario, and ranged from 24 MtCO 2 e yr −1 to 47 MtCO 2 e yr −1 (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, it produced more solid and composite wood products for short-lived applications and kraft pulp for the Chinese market. The half-lives of these products in China were approximately 2 to 3 years [ 63 , 82 ]. Therefore the emissions started to surpass the BASE scenario in 2017.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, the first order decay function was used for paper products. The half-life was assumed to be 2 years in line with previous publications and IPCC defaults [ 63 , 107 , 115 , cf. 122 , 123 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The US uses a large proportion of wood as construction material and the timber construction market share is one of the highest in the world [ 53 , 62 ]. China, on the other hand, mostly uses wood for short-lived applications such as concrete casing and packaging [ 63 ]. The EU mostly combusts BC’s pellets for heat and electricity [ 60 ].…”

Section: Mitigation Scenarios Used In This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The principal products imported by China are raw logs, sawnwood and chemical pulp. The end uses of BC’s wood in China are mostly in the shorter-lived categories such as paper, concrete casing, shipping and packaging [ 63 ].…”

Section: Mitigation Scenarios Used In This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inward- versus outward-focused bioeconomy strategies for British Columbia’s forest products industry: a harvested wood products carbon storage and emission perspective

Xie

Kurz

McFarlane

2021

Carbon Balance Manage

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Background British Columbia’s (BC) extensive forest resources provide climate change mitigation opportunities that are available to few other jurisdictions. However, as a consequence of the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak and large-scale wildfires, BC is anticipating reduced roundwood harvest for the next decades. Progress towards more climatically efficient utilization of forest resources is needed. This research quantitatively compared the greenhouse gas emission consequences of nine harvested wood products trade and consumption strategies. Inward-focused strategies use wood products within Canada to achieve emission reduction objectives, while outward-focused strategies encourage exports of wood products. Results In the business-as-usual baseline scenario, average emissions arising from BC-originated harvested wood products between 2016 and 2050 were 40 MtCO2e yr−1. The estimated theoretical boundaries were 11 MtCO2e yr−1 and 54 MtCO2e yr−1, under the scenarios of using all harvests for either construction purposes or biofuel production, respectively. Due to the constrained domestic market size, inward-focused scenarios that were based on population and market capacity achieved 0.3–10% emission reductions compared to the baseline. The international markets were larger, however the emissions varied substantially between 68% reduction and 25% increase depending on wood products’ end uses. Conclusions Future bioeconomy strategies can have a substantial impact on emissions. This analysis revealed that from a carbon storage and emission perspective, it was better to consume BC’s harvests within Canada and only export those products that would be used for long-lived construction applications, provided that construction market access beyond the US was available. However, restricting export of wood products destined for short-lived uses such as pulp and wood pellets would have significant economic and social impacts. On the other hand, inward-focused strategies had a small but politically and environmentally meaningful contribution to BC’s climate action plan. This study also revealed the conflicts between a demand-driven bioeconomy and targeted environmental outcomes. A hierarchical incentive system that could co-exist with other market drivers may help achieve emission reduction goals, but this would require a better quantitative understanding of wood products’ substitution effects. While the analyses were conducted for BC, other regions that are net exporters of wood products may face similar issues.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mitigation Scenarios Used In This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mitigation Scenarios Used In This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Inward- versus outward-focused bioeconomy strategies for British Columbia’s forest products industry: a harvested wood products carbon storage and emission perspective

Xie

Kurz

McFarlane

2021

Carbon Balance Manage

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Impact of carbon price on the relative profitability of production forestry and permanent forestry for New Zealand plantations

Manley

2023

Forest Policy and Economics

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Estimating New Zealand’s harvested wood products carbon stocks and stock changes

Wakelin

Searles

Lawrence

et al. 2020

Carbon Balance Manage

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Background Reducing net greenhouse gas emissions through conserving existing forest carbon stocks and encouraging additional uptake of carbon in existing and new forests have become important climate change mitigation tools. The contribution of harvested wood products (HWPs) to increasing carbon uptake has been recognised and approaches to quantifying this pool developed. In New Zealand, harvesting has more than doubled since 1990 while log exports have increased by a factor of 11 due to past afforestation and comparatively little expansion in domestic processing. This paper documents New Zealand’s application of the IPCC approaches for reporting contributions of the HWP pool to net emissions, in order to meet international greenhouse gas inventory reporting requirements. We examine the implications of the different approaches and assumptions used in calculating the HWP contribution and highlight model limitations. Results Choice of system boundary has a large impact for a country with a small domestic market and significant HWP exports. Under the Production approach used for New Zealand’s greenhouse gas inventory reporting, stock changes in planted forests and in HWPs both rank highly as key categories. The contribution from HWPs is even greater under the Atmospheric Flow approach, because emissions from exported HWPs are not included. Conversely the Stock Change approach minimises the contribution of HWPs because the domestic market is small. The use of country-specific data to backfill the time series from 1900 to 1960 has little impact but using country-specific parameters in place of IPCC defaults results in a smaller HWP sink for New Zealand. This is because of the dominance of plantation forestry based on a softwood mainly used in relatively short-lived products. Conclusions The NZ HWP Model currently meets international inventory reporting requirements. Further disaggregation of the semi-finished HWP end uses both within New Zealand and in export markets is required to improve accuracy. Product end-uses and lifespans need to be continually assessed to capture changes. More extensive analyses that include the benefits of avoided emissions through product substitution and life cycle emissions from the forestry sector are required to fully assess the contribution of forests and forest products to climate change mitigation and a low emissions future.

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An estimate of carbon stocks for harvested wood products from logs exported from New Zealand to China

Cited by 6 publications

References 8 publications

Inward- versus outward-focused bioeconomy strategies for British Columbia’s forest products industry: a harvested wood products carbon storage and emission perspective

Inward- versus outward-focused bioeconomy strategies for British Columbia’s forest products industry: a harvested wood products carbon storage and emission perspective

Impact of carbon price on the relative profitability of production forestry and permanent forestry for New Zealand plantations

Estimating New Zealand’s harvested wood products carbon stocks and stock changes

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