European Union forests expanding, absorbing carbon at surprisingly high r...( The new paper builds on work reporte...)

The new paper builds on work reported last year by Prof. Kauppi and international collaborators, who revealed the shift from deforestation to afforestation in the worlds most forested nations. They advanced a more sophisticated approach to measuring forest cover that considers not just forested area but density of trees per hectare.

Their Forest Identity calculation also quantifies the biomass and atmospheric carbon stored in forests. They reported that, amid widespread concern about deforestation, growing stock has in fact expanded over the past 15 years in 22 of the 50 countries with most forest, including several EU members.

The good news is that trees are extremely efficient mechanisms for capturing and storing carbon, says Prof. Kauppi, a member of the Nobel-laureate UN International Panel on Climate Change. The better news is that Europes forests are thriving and expanding and therefore will play an increasingly important role in helping the EU to reach its environmental goals.

Every year, the expanding European forests remove a surprisingly large amount of carbon from the atmosphere, says co-author Aapo Rautiainen. According to rough estimates, their impact in reducing atmospheric carbon may well be twice that achieved by the use of renewable energy in Europe today.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU commited to an 8% reduction of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, using 1990 as the base year. Under the protocol, countries do not get credit for increasing natural carbon sinks through forestry and agriculture. Negotiations on an accord to cover the post-Kyoto period 2012 to 2020 are underway.

The researchers note the daunting challenge confronting EU nations in order to meet a post-Kyoto commitment to reduce emissions 20% from 1990 levels by 2020: a dramatic reduction of energy used per unit of GDP and de-carbonization of energy supply against a backdrop of rising population and affluence.

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