The land sector in the low carbon emission strategies in the European Union: role and future expectations

ABSTRACT

The Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector (LULUCF) role is of critical importance in contributing to the ambitious targets set by the European Union (EU) to reduce by 55% net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, and to become carbon neutral by 2050. The EU LULUCF regulation, approved in 2023, sets out binding targets for each individual Member State to be achieved by 2030, totaling 310 MtCO₂e of net removals for the whole EU. However, it remains poorly understood to what extent the EU LULUCF climate target matches with the Member States’ strategies. The alignment between the EU governance and its Member States’ visions for the long-term will determine the achievement of the climate targets. The objective of this study is to understand the LULUCF expected contribution to the EU’s 2030 and 2050 climate goals. In doing so, we explored the European and country-level visions of LULUCF with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as expressed in their Long-Term Strategies (LTSs) and national projections; we evaluated whether national level projections for LULUCF are aligned with the EU short and long term targets. We found that most countries’ LTSs envisage policies and measures in the LULUCF sector, however they are, often general and not comprehensive. Furthermore, the majority of countries’ quantitative future projections of GHG emissions and removals from LULUCF differ from the pathway set in EU targets; thus, countries may need to either update existing policies or conceive and plan new policies and actions.

Key policy insights

• European Union (EU) Member States are required to design and carefully implement LULUCF policies to comply with the ambitious EU targets.

• EU countries describe in their Long-Term Strategies LULUCF policies and measures that are potentially effective, but not comprehensive, transparent and accurate.

• Ideally Long-Term Strategies for LULUCF are aligned with other policy instruments, e.g. Nationally Determined Contributions and National Energy and Climate Plans.

• Many EU countries may grapple with the adoption and fulfilment of the currently proposed European Union targets on LULUCF.

KEYWORDS:

• Paris Agreement
• European Union
• land use
• forestry
• agriculture
• cluster analysis

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 European Commission project "RethinkAction", under Grant Agreement No 101037104. It was also supported by the “PARIS REINFORCE” Project (Grant Agreement 820846) and by the Cooperation agreement between the Italian Ministry of Ecological Transition and CMCC (2022-2024). The sole responsibility for the content of this paper lies with the authors; the paper does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the European Commission or the Italian Government.We thank Giacomo Grassi for the helpful comments on the manuscript. We also thank anonymous reviewers whose comments helped to improve this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.