The global climate is expected to change in response to the rapid increase of greenhouse gas, especially carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The role of forests in responding to the international needs of reducing the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere has been emphasized. However, the climate change may profoundly change the growth of the forests in the boreal zone in response to changes in temperature and precipitation. For the boreal forests, most of the climate scenarios suggest enhancing growth, but in some high-latitude dry regions the growth of some species may reduce.
The EU is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and also raise the share of renewable energies to 20% by 2020 (EC, 2008). Overall targets include reducing emissions, substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy, and increasing the use of wood materials in construction. The target has to be achieved at national level and varies among the countries based on its historic use of renewable energy. For example, the target for Finland was set to increase the share from 28.5% in 2005 to 38% by 2020. This will have the major effects on the dynamics of carbon in the forest ecosystems, with major challenges to needs to sequestrate and retain carbon in ecosystems when producing timber and energy biomass.
Novel forest management systems for the production of energy biomass are needed in order to enhance the climate change mitigation in the context of energy production. Management intervention together with varying environmental conditions should be considered for different forest types and structure of the forests (young or mature stage). This will identify not only the determinants of the production potential of forests but also possibilities in mitigating climate change. On the other hand, a large-scale harvesting of forest biomass for energy (energy biomass) will raise the question how sustainable the energy systems based on biomass are. In addition, the production of energy biomass needs fossil energy and enhances the emission of greenhouse gases, thus negating the benefits of the production. Carbon and energy input calculations are, therefore, important to evaluate the contribution of forests and energy biomass in reducing emissions and storing of carbon.
Further info and registration to the course on
http://www.joensuu.fi/metsatdk/gsforest/students/NOVA_course_2011.htm |
|
