More future synergies and less trade-offs between forest ecosystem services with natural climate solutions instead of bioeconomy solutions

Abstract

To reach the Paris Agreement, societies need to increase the global terrestrial carbon sink. There are many climate change mitigation solutions (CCMS) for forests, including increasing bioenergy, bioeconomy, and protection. Bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions use climate-smart, intensive management to generate high quantities of bioenergy and bioproducts. Protection of (semi-)natural forests is a major component of "natural climate solution" (NCS) since forests store carbon in standing biomass and soil. Furthermore, protected forests provide more habitat for biodiversity and non-wood ecosystem services (ES). We investigated the impacts of different CCMS and climate scenarios, jointly or in isolation, on future wood ES, non-wood ES, and regulating ES for a major wood provider for the international market. Specifically, we projected future ES given by three CCMS scenarios for Sweden 2020-2100. In the long term, fulfilling the increasing wood demand through bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions will decrease ES multifunctionality, but the increased stand age and wood stocks induced by rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will partially offset these negative effects. Adopting bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions will have a greater negative impact on ES supply than adopting NCS. Bioenergy or bioeconomy solutions, as well as increasing GHG emissions, will reduce synergies and increase trade-offs in ES. NCS, by contrast, increases the supply of multiple ES in synergy, even transforming current ES trade-offs into future synergies. Moreover, NCS can be considered an adaptation measure to offset negative climate change effects on the future supplies of non-wood ES. In boreal countries around the world, forestry strategies that integrate NCS more deeply are crucial to ensure a synergistic supply of multiple ES.

Keywords: EU biodiversity strategy; EU forest strategy; GLOBIOM; bioeconomy; bioenergy; boreal forest; climate change; ecosystem services; natural climate solutions.

FIGURE 1

Expectations on how increasing wood demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will change forest management and forest structure, thereby changing ecosystem services (ES) supply and multifunctionality of the northern European forest.

FIGURE 2

Projected mean levels and standard errors of seven ecosystem services and multifunctionality for the Swedish forests given by four climate change mitigation solutions and three climate scenarios. RCP, Representative Concentration Pathway.

FIGURE 3

Projected mean levels and standard errors of predictors and drivers of ecosystem services for the Swedish forests given by four climate change mitigation solutions and three climate scenarios. Temperature (T _sum) and precipitation (P _sum) sums are calculated over the growing season. RCP, Representative Concentration Pathway.

FIGURE 4

Changes in pairwise correlations between ecosystem services from 2020 to 2100 for Swedish forests given four climate change mitigation solutions and three climate scenarios. Positive and negative correlations reflect synergies and trade‐offs, respectively. Arrows represent start (2020) and end (2100) correlations, so downward arrows represent decreases across time, upward represent increases, and horizontal ones represent stable correlations. CC, Constant Climate; RCP, Representative Concentration Pathway.