European Forest Governance: Status Quo and Optimising Options with Regard to the Paris Climate Target

Abstract

This article assesses and develops policy instruments for forest governance in the EU. Methodologically, it examines opportunities and limits for negative emissions by means of a literature review. On this basis, it conducts a qualitative governance analysis of the most important instruments of EU forest policy and presents optimizing policy options, measured against the binding climate and biodiversity targets under international law. Our analysis shows that the potential benefits of afforestation and reforestation for climate mitigation are overestimated, and are often presented as the new saviours to assist in reaching climate neutrality, inter alia, since only biodiverse and thus resilient forests can function as a carbon sink in the long term. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the existing EU law fails to comply with climate and biodiversity targets. Quantity governance systems for livestock farming, fossil fuels and similar drivers of deforestation represent a more promising approach to forest governance than the dominant regulatory and subsidy-based governance. They are most effective when not directly addressing forests due to their heterogeneity but central damaging factors such as fossil fuels and livestock farming. Selected aspects of regulatory and subsidy law can supplement these quantity governance systems when focusing on certain easily attainable and thus controllable subjects. These include, e.g., the regulatory protection of old-growth forests with almost no exceptions and a complete conversion of all agricultural and forest subsidies to “public money for public services” to promote nature conservation and afforestation.

Human Rights and Large-Scale Carbon Dioxide Removal: Potential Limits to BECCS and DACCS Deployment

“…With regard to other biomass sources, it will be sensible for all states to institute the "cascading principle", as already advocated by the European Commission in its "Fit for 55" package [262]. According to the principle, biomass should only be used for combustion if there are no higher-value usage, re-use and recycling options available and mainly in places where other energy sources that deliver substantive energy such as PtX and hydrogen do not offer better solutions [14,30,262].…”

“…Even though biomass is sometimes hailed as the renewable energy with the highest potential [35], its usage comes with many disadvantages [14,30,36]. Aside from the large land-use requirements, burning biomass is not particularly energy-efficient.…”

“…Before assessing whether a rapid expansion of BECCS may violate the right to a healthy environment, it is necessary to examine how the technology may affect natural living conditions such as biodiversity. BECCS' principal impact on biodiversity is due to terrestrial land-use change [14,30]. To date, agriculture-related activities are responsible for about 70 percent of global biodiversity loss, making agriculture by far the most significant contributor [169,170].…”

“…NETs will remain necessary if one assumes a very small remaining GHG budget. In this respect, however, forest and peatland management are available as more appropriate measures: unlike BECCS, they are not associated with an increase in the various ecological problems of agriculture and can protect biodiversity and the climate (provided that this does not entail monocultural afforestation) [13,14]. Other more suitable policies further include the renaturation of ecosystems, organic farming practices, frugality, and sustainable consumption and nutrition.…”

“…The IPCC, in its AR6 III report, similarly remarks that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will involve NETs to some extent [7]. Although the use of these approaches will be unavoidable, it is unclear whether NET policies will focus on less-controversial approaches such as peatland and forest management [13,14] instead of large-scale industrial CDR deployment, which may conflict with international law. Building on an earlier contribution that critically dealt with geoengineering in general without analyzing BECCS and DACCS [7], this article focuses on possible human rights infringements due to large-scale BECCS and DACCS scenarios.…”