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

Introduction

In climate policy, Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) is a composite sector, constituted by different sub-sectors. Each of these sub-sectors is regulated by different governance mechanisms and policy patterns, encompassing emissions and removals mainly from forests, but also from cropland, grasslands, wetlands and settlements. This complex land policy environment involves diverse national actors and policy priorities linked to national circumstances that include institutional structures, socio-cultural characteristics and environmental priorities (Brodny & Tutak, 2021; Ronchi et al., 2019). The land sector is placed at the center of many important European Union (EU) policies, such as the EU Green Deal (European Commission, 2019) and its interlinked policy instruments, e.g. the Adaptation Strategy (European Commission, 2021b), the Farm to Fork Strategy (European Commission, 2020a) and the Biodiversity Strategy (European Commission, 2020c).

The European pathway toward the mid-century goal of climate neutrality entails interim targets. Notably, the ‘Fit for 55’ legislative proposals follow the updated target of −55% net greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030 compared to 1990 levels (European Commission, 2021a). The ‘Fit for 55’ package includes a number of multi-sectoral, inter-connected, and challenging proposals, including the proposal for a revision of the 841/2018 EU regulation on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from LULUCF, then approved in 2023 as Regulation EU/2023/839 (hereafter called revised LULUCF reg.). The revised LULUCF reg. introduces some modifications to the existing LULUCF regulatory framework sector, previously adopted in 2018 (European Union, 2018a), by setting out binding targets for each individual Member State (MS) to be achieved by 2030; in aggregate, these MS targets total 310 MtCO₂e of net removals for the whole EU. While the previous version of the regulation required the sector to be ‘emission’ neutral (the so called no-debit-rule), the revised regulation requires MS to provide an additional annual removal of 42 MtCO₂e in relation to the 2016–2028 sector’s average (−256MtCO₂) at the EU level (European Union, 2023).

Aiming to equitably distribute the 310 MtCO₂e target among the 27 MSs, the Commission established an emission allocation method considering two aspects: the average emission/removal for the years 2016–2018 and the area of managed land for each MS. The first aspect ‘ensures that the target reflects the current mitigation performance of the LULUCF sector in each MS, which include the recent impacts of natural disturbances’. The second aspect ‘reflects the capacity of a MS to improve its LULUCF performance, as it strongly correlates with the area available for action, either via positive land use change or by improved land management practices’ (European Union, 2023).

A further target is set by the revised LULUCF reg., at the single Member State level, annually for the period from 2026 to 2029, with the commitment to achieve a sum of net GHG emissions and removals within a pre-defined budget (so called budget for 2026–2029) based on a linear trajectory between 2030 and the average value for its GHG inventory data for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, as submitted in 2025. In other words, the linear trajectory of a MS that defines the 2026–2029 budget target shall start in 2022 at the average value for GHG inventory data for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, and have as its end point target the linear projection for 2030. The compliance against these MSs’ targets is assessed in 2032, and if there is a gap between a MS’s budget for 2026–2029 and the corresponding reported net removals, the gap will be multiplied by 108% and it will be added to the figure reported for 2030 by that MS. In addition, any deficit accumulated by 2030 by each MS is expected to be taken into account when the Commission submits proposals concerning the post-2030 period.

The revision of the LULUCF regulation poses additional burdens on the agriculture and forestry sub-sectors, with stricter targets than previous regulations (Savaresi et al., 2020). These MS targets are well beyond the aggregate 225 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹ that the European Climate Law (European Union, 2021) initially established as a possible contribution from the LULUCF sector to the Union 2030s 55% target; therefore the sector de-facto contributes to raising the ambition level of the EU’s 2030 GHG reduction target to 57% (European Parliament, 2022). Interconnection and interoperability among national plans responding to the EU climate strategy is key for achieving the climate policy objectives. Understanding how countries’ strategies cope with LULUCF can provide insights not only on carbon dioxide dynamics, but also can help to frame the country-specific vision on the LULUCF role in achieving the EU target of carbon neutrality trough different connected sectors.

National governments are required to design policies and measures (PaMs) in line with the EU’s commitment as defined in the EU’s Green Deal and related instruments (European Commission, 2019). In this, forestry policy remains primarily a national competence and the EU does not have a common forestry policy; thus the achievement of the EU climate goals will depend on how countries will plan and implement measures to comply with the European context generally, and on how these two levels of governance– national and European – are aligned.

Analyzing national PaMs allows us to assess the sector (and sub-sector) contributions to established climate targets and to each nation’s vision for developing and approaching land-use policies, with differentiated processes of policy planning and evaluation (van Sluisveld et al., 2017). A useful source of information is the Long-Term Strategies (LTSs) (sometimes called Long-Term Low GHG Emission Development Strategies or Mid-Century Strategies) that all parties to the Paris Agreement are invited to communicate by 2020, in accordance with Article 4, paragraph 19 of the Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015). With a perspective of at least 30 years, the LTSs cover GHG emission reductions and enhancement of removals from all sectors, as well as the tradeoffs and linkages among them. Many MSs have submitted their own LTSs describing the path toward climate neutrality, although often not describing in detail the contribution of each sector (Buylova et al., 2021). Alongside their LTSs, Member States report their national projections of GHG emissions up to 2035 as required through the EU framework of the Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 (European Union, 2018b) which repeal and replace the Climate Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (European Union, 2013) on mechanisms for monitoring and reporting GHG emissions and for reporting other information at national and EU level relevant to climate change.

Expectations for the contribution of the LULUCF sector under the Paris Agreement are high (Forsell et al., 2016; Riahi et al., 2022), however, the European Commission and the MSs’ visions on its qualitative-quantitative role may differ. The objective of this study is to understand the expected contribution of LULUCF to the EU’s 2030 goal of cutting emissions by 55% (or 57%) and to reach the mid-century climate neutrality. In doing so, we explore European and country-level visions of LULUCF with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation as expressed through LTS and national projections; as part of this, we evaluate whether national level projections are aligned with the EU short and long term targets.

Methodology and data collection

This analysis comprises three parts. First, we analyze countries’ projections for understanding the quantitative intended contribution of each country toward the 2030 LULUCF emissions reduction goals at EU and at country level and we performed a cluster analysis to explore similarities and differences among countries’ approach towards the LULUCF role (section 2.1). Second, we analyze the LTSs reports of the EU Member States to understand how LULUCF is treated and incorporated into their mid-century strategies and to evaluate approaches and activities, at country, land category and practice levels; we also consider what vision of LULUCF countries present in their official national climate policy documents (section 2.2). Third, we compare three data sources: the countries’ projections, the country-level emission targets contained in the revised LULUCF reg., and the EU Reference Scenario (European Commission, 2021d) (section 2.3). A table with the values of the three data sources, covering all countries, is provided in the Supplementary Materials (SM, Annex 1). Given that the assumptions, models and approaches used to define each of the three sources of estimates are different, rather than making a straightforward comparison, the analysis aims to understand the general trends, quantities, and coherence of each among the different data sources analyzed.

Countries’ projections and cluster analysis

Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 (European Union, 2018b) requires MSs to report every two years on national projections of anthropogenic GHG emissions by sources and removals by sinks for the years 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2035 (EEA, 2021). Two types of projections are required: projections taking into account current domestic PaMs (called With Existing Measures, WEM) and projections taking also into account additional or planned domestic PaMs (called With Additional Measures, WAM). The data reported by MSs are quality checked by the European Environmental Agency (EEA). In this study, we consider emission projections With Additional Measure (WAM) in 2030.

A cluster analysis helps to group MSs that are similar in terms of land-based mitigation projections and total emissions excluding LULUCF in 2030. A cluster analysis refers to a wide set of techniques for finding subgroups, or clusters in a dataset according to measured or perceived intrinsic characteristics or similarity (Everitt et al., 2011). The aim of a cluster analysis is to obtain subgroups containing observations quite similar to each other, while the diversity among the different cluster groups is maximized. In this study, EU countries are grouped on the basis of observations across two variables: (i) the projections of LULUCF net emissions With Additional Measure (WAM) in 2030; (ii) the projections of total emission without LULUCF in 2030.

In this study, the cluster analysis provides insights into similarities and differences among different types of countries, facilitating understanding of the role assigned to LULUCF and climate change mitigation by each cluster. Among the different algorithms available for cluster analysis, we used K-means clustering, one of the most popular and simple algorithms that creates K distinct, non-overlapping clusters of observations (Jain, 2010). Before running the algorithm, the user defines the number of clusters. Then, the K-means clustering algorithm performs three steps: (1) it randomly assigns each observation to a cluster; (2) it calculates the cluster’s centroid (the kth cluster centroid is the vector of the n variable mean for the observations in the kth cluster); (3) it assigns each observation to the cluster whose centroid has the lowest Euclidean distance (the length of a straight line segment between two points). Steps two and three are reiterated until the cluster assignments stop changing. It is important to find the correct number of clusters to ensure a successfully analysis; for this reason, we run the cluster analysis multiple times, including each time the two above-mentioned variables and setting each time different number of clusters. The algorithm provides for each run the within cluster sum of squares, which is a measure of the variability of the observations within each cluster. Finally, we select the analysis with the number of clusters that minimize the total within-cluster sum of squares.

Analysis of the long-term strategy reports

Besides the national projections, we review the LTS reports for all EU countries, and collect the land-based PaMs for climate change mitigation and adaptation that included an explanation on either how they could be implemented or their potential expected benefit through specific actions or objectives. In the identification of PaMs we followed the definition given in the Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 (European Union, 2013), that describes PaMs as: ‘all instruments which aim to implement commitments under Article 4(2)(a) and (b) of the UNFCCC, which may include those that do not have the limitation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a primary objective’.

The LTS reports have neither a standard format nor a common way to refer to the land management approaches. We therefore categorize the PaMs following the activity grouping of the IPCC (Smith et al., 2019) and identify the following land-based response options: land management in forests; land management in agriculture; land management of soils; land management of all/other ecosystems; land management specifically targeted at carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and demand management. This categorization of PaMs serves as an instrument to explore the planned mitigation and adaptation activities in a more standardized and sound way, allowing for comparability among member states and helping us to evaluate how LULUCF is treated and incorporated into the LTS.

The EU reference scenario

The EU Reference Scenario provides emission projections at intervals of five years, up to 2050, considering the current policy context, based on certain framework conditions, assumptions, and historical trends, notably in the light of the most recent statistical data on energy system, transport and GHG emissions (e.g. GHG inventories and national projections). Reference Scenarios are built on latest EU and Member State policies for the next years and present a projection of the evolution of EU LULUCF. The national policies taken into account in the Reference Scenario include the main ones laid out in the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) as well as in other national plans (e.g. the Long-Term Renovation Strategies). The Reference Scenario assumes achievement of the national contributions towards the EU 2030 energy targets on energy efficiency and renewables (respectively 32.5% and 32%). It thus projects slight overshooting of the current EU 2030 renewables target and an ambition gap towards the current EU 2030 energy efficiency target.

For each EU MS we collect reference scenarios issued by the European Commission (European Commission, 2021d), which express national GHG net emissions/removals in CO₂e; we then compare the emission/removal values for the 2030 projections and the revised LULUCF targets in the fit for 55 proposal.

Results and discussion

The LULUCF sector contribution to the EU low carbon emission strategy

The cluster analysis categorize the 27 Member States (MSs) in four clusters (Figure 1). The largest EU emitter countries in 2030 belong to cluster 4, which includes France, Italy, Poland and Spain; at the same time, these countries project a LULUCF sector as a net sink, accounting for about half of the EU sink by 2030. However, there is a substantial gap between the countries’ projections and the target proposed by the LULUCF reg., which requires them to provide a larger amount of removals from LULUCF (as shown in Figure 3). The second largest 2030 EU sink is represented by cluster 1, which includes Romania, Sweden and Finland. Thus, about the 80% of the 2030 EU LULUCF carbon sink is located in only seven countries, i.e. those belonging to cluster 1 and 4. It is worth noting that countries’ projections were submitted before the new target was proposed in July 2021, so projections were not prepared with an awareness of the new targets. Nevertheless, this analysis shows that most countries still need to grapple with how to align action to meet the challenging new targets.

Figure 1. Distribution of EU-27 countries based on the two variables used in the cluster analysis: total projected emission without LULUCF in 2030 and the projections of LULUCF net emissions in 2030 (EEA, 2021). The figure shows how many countries’ projections envisage the LULUCF as a net source of emissions (above the zero on the vertical axis) and as a net sink (below the zero on the vertical axis). Cluster 2 is split into two sub-clusters to highlight an important difference: both sub-clusters include countries with relatively low total emissions without LULUCF, but, while for cluster 2b LULUCF is always a net sink, cluster 2a includes countries with positive net emissions from LULUCF.

Germany, alone, constitutes a cluster, its emission values are largely different from any other MS. In particular, the forest carbon sink decreases from 67 to 15 MtCO₂e from 2018 to 2030, making the LULUCF a net source with over 22 MtCO₂e emissions. This scenario differs greatly from the German LTS, where it is stated that additional measures will be taken to safeguard the LULUCF sink. It has to be highlighted that the 2030 German projections’ are preliminary and are a result of gap-filling methods applied by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) in case of missing data (European Environment Agency, 2021; Schmid et al., 2021).

Land-based policies and measures across the European Union

Reviewing all the 21 Long-Term Strategies (LTS) reports available in September 2022, we find that all of them consider the LULUCF sector as part of the decarbonization path to 2050, although not all countries have specified how LULUCF will be treated nor have they detailed activities and measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The LTS is developed in accordance with Article 4, paragraph 19, of the Paris Agreement, which does not specify particular requirements to be satisfied or common format to follow. Consequently, the reports provided by parties differ quite a lot in terms of structure and data contained, making it complex to compare them. We gather the Policies and Measures (PaMs) with the same core objective and calculate the number of countries that reported them (see Table 1). The LTSs are not legal acts, rather they outline objectives that have to be reached through national PaMs; the LTSs do not provide information on the state of legislative processes, and it is possible that these MSs have yet to translate their LTSs into policies (Gopinathan et al., 2019). Excluding Greece, all the LTS reports include a dedicated section for LULUCF with qualitative information; about 40% of the LTS reports lack quantitative information on LULUCF mitigation.

Table 1. Land-based Policies and Measures (PaMs) for climate change mitigation and adaptation found in the Long-Term Strategies, categorized following the activity grouping of the IPCC (legend below the table). Only PaMs reported at least by four countries are shown here: the complete list with all PaMs for all countries is included in the supplementary materials (Annex 2).

Over one third of the PaMs (15 out of 21) contained in the analyzed LTSs concern ‘land management in forests’, confirming the key role played by active forest management as a mitigation action (Verkerk et al., 2022). We found that the LTSs do not provide information on plans and strategies that address specific forest management mitigation actions, either at local scale or across the country. It is thus not easy to understand which strategies MSs intend to adopt with respect to forest management, or whether they intend to incentivize mainly short- or long-term mitigation options (Soimakallio et al., 2021).

The national-scale mitigation contribution of forests and the forest sector needs to be carefully planned to achieve the greatest mitigation impact, considering the trade-off between short- and long-term mitigation goals (Kalliokoski et al., 2020). A unique challenge in LTS reporting, regarding forest-based mitigation activities, is the long time frame needed to observe the beneficial effect of such activities. According to the currently available estimates, it will be challenging to achieve the 2030 EU climate targets through forest-based mitigation activities alone in the medium-term, achieving such targets will require the contribution of non-forest land categories (i.e. cropland, grassland, wetland) that have higher potentials to provide short-term mitigation benefits (Verkerk et al., 2022).

The option for ‘Conservation and sustainable management of forests’ is included in fifteen of the analyzed LTS reports: excluding Greece and Denmark (since they lack information on LULUCF), we find that only Italy, Finland, Malta and Netherlands do not specify this as a PaM. Other forest-related options such as ‘Reforestation and forest restoration’ as well as ‘Afforestation’ are included in 12 and 15 LTSs, respectively. Afforestation and reforestation are reported to have the maximum mitigation potential and cost-effectiveness of land-based PaMs and, if properly implemented, to have benefits similar to forest management for carbon stock enhancement (e.g. use native species, improve connectivity between patches of intact forests) (Griscom et al., 2017; Stanturf et al., 2015). The most relevant policy objective related to afforestation and reforestation is set out in the new EU Forest Strategy, which sets a target of planting 3 billion additional trees by 2030 (European Commission, 2021c).

Overall, forest related mitigation actions can be hampered by natural and human-induced disturbances (Pilli et al., 2016) that may jeopardize policies for forest management and expansion aimed at fulfilling the objectives under the Paris Agreement. About 3% of the total forest area in twenty-two European countries is affected by some type of damage (Forest Europe, 2020). From 1984 to 2016, canopy mortality in Europe increased by +2.40% year^–1, doubling the forest area affected by mortality (Senf et al., 2018). This threatens the key function of forests to sequester and stock carbon (Forzieri et al., 2021); additionally, the effect of climate change (i.e. increasing mean temperature, lower annual precipitation) is an important factor that increases forest mortality (Senf et al., 2018). However, considering that data on disturbances are still scarce, the potential future effect of the many natural disturbances needs to be better understood and remains an interesting topic for future research (Hyyrynen et al., 2023). Despite the challenges faced by the forest-related PaMs, most EU countries decided to include the expansion of forest resources in their LTSs; some countries also reported country-specific targets for the next years (Forest Europe, 2020) driven by the demand for wood as biomass for energy in the EU (Camia et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021).

The second largest category in terms of numbers of PaMs reported by MSs is ‘land management in all/other ecosystems’. Only Austria, Greece, Latvia and Netherlands do not have any PaM under this category. It indicates a common awareness among countries of the importance to protect, restore and manage natural ecosystems to enhance their health and vitality and increase resilience as well as to reduce hazards. We believe that this category should be prioritized as presenting high co-benefits besides preservation of carbon sinks. Preventing wildfires belongs in this category as well and is considered by ten countries, including all the Mediterranean ones (except Greece), most of which have witnessed an increase in severe wildfires. Protecting peatlands is another promising emission reduction activity: despite covering only 4% of the EU’s land surface, peatlands represent the largest terrestrial organic carbon stock and continue to act as a carbon sink in Europe. Peatlands protection is envisaged in eight LTSs (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden) that include the large parts of the European areas where peatlands are found. Recognition of this PaM activity is missing in four countries where peatland is still significant: Netherlands, Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania.

Over 50% of the LTSs (12 out of 21) include ‘biodiversity conservation’, which also constitutes a key element of the European mission to protect nature and reverse the degradation of ecosystems, while contributing to carbon sequestration (European Commission, 2020c). In fact, biodiversity protection is a necessary prerequisite to ensure long-term resilience of land-based solutions (Girardin et al., 2021). Biodiversity-friendly measures in forest management are sometimes considered in conflict with carbon sequestration (Schwaiger et al., 2019), although they do not necessarily imply a decrease in biomass as long as decision-makers and managers design and apply a thoughtful and strategic land planning to ensure both biodiversity and carbon benefits (Biber et al., 2020). The goal should be to obtain an optimal balance between climate PaMs, ecological values, economic opportunities and food and energy security; unfortunately, the LTSs remain rather vague about this issue of balance and it was not possible from the information provided to assess this.

Promotion of wood as biomass for energy is included in 85% of the LTSs and is the most reported among all the LULUCF PaMs. Almost all MSs, excluding Czech, Denmark and Malta, include it as a viable solution to achieve the 2050 climate target. However, bioenergy delivers significant benefits when implemented following certain sustainable principles, otherwise it may cause degradation and deforestation (outside of the EU), net increases of CO₂ in the atmosphere and competition for land and water with other uses (Lee et al., 2019). In Europe, bioenergy production is derived from forests (over 60%), agriculture (27%) and waste (12%) (Camia et al., 2021; Scarlat et al., 2019). The adverse effects linked to erroneous energy planning can be avoided and eventually turned into a positive outcome, if each country performs an assessment that considers not only the environmental consequences, but also supply chain, fuel substitution, and other indirect effects (Birdsey et al., 2018). The LTS reports do not clarify these crucial aspects. A previous analysis of National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) found that the EU MSs plan to further increase the use of biomass, with bioenergy accounting for a share of 70% of sources for renewable heat in 2030 (Smith et al., 2021). However, they also found that most MSs do not transparently indicate the likely adverse impact of increased wood burning; they also fail to sufficiently provide information on potential adverse impacts on forest carbon-sequestration.

In total, 14 MSs plan to promote wood as a substitute material (over 65% of them) over more carbon-intensive materials. The use of harvested trees strongly determines the net carbon uptake of the whole forest system (e.g. forest sinks decrease due to harvesting, carbon storage occurs in wood products, and carbon emissions are reduced due to a substitution effect); a reduction of net carbon emissions occurs when the final products use long-lived wood assortments (Biber et al., 2020); in this sense, half of those 14 MSs also commit to increase the share of Harvested Wood Products (HWPs) with long lifetimes. A recent projection indicates that the GHG balance of wood products in use in Europe may double between 2020 and 2030, representing an uptake of from 25 to 50 MtCO₂e year⁻¹, considering a scenarios where engineered wood products are actively promoted against the business-as-usual (Brunet-Navarro et al., 2021). Considering that forestry resources are limited, competition for their use exists, nevertheless, there are still areas suitable to be converted to forests in the EU. In fact, among the 14 MSs that intend to promote wood as a substitute material, 9 countries (64%) also include measures of afforestation and reforestation.

Five land-based measures fall within the category ‘land management in agriculture’ representing 23% of the total measures reported in the LTSs. Many countries (14) include some activities aiming to decrease emissions (tillage reduction, conservation of grassland, longer crop rotation) or to increase the sinks (increase soil carbon content, restoration of grassland, use of agroforestry) in the cropland and grassland ecosystems. This is relevant since agriculture is a major source of anthropogenic GHG emissions (Sanderman et al., 2017), and croplands and grasslands represent a net source of emission in the EU mostly due to emissions occurring in organic soils (EEA, 2022). Since the carbon sink and storage in living biomass is limited to perennial crops (e.g. vineyards and orchards), the main carbon pool in croplands and grasslands is the soil organic carbon. ‘Increase soil carbon content’ is a measure found in 11 LTSs: a low number considering that protecting soil carbon is key not only for climate change, but also to improve soil health, which increases biodiversity, soil fertility, and food production (UNCCD, 2022). The fact that most countries neglect soil PaMs does not necessarily mean that they lack domestic policies to improve the mitigation potential of soils: it may relate to the choice to not go into the details of soil carbon in their LTSs for different reasons. For example, some reasons for the lack of attention may include: accounting difficulties (e.g. lack of accurate, affordable data or a suitable measurement and reporting system); consideration of soil carbon protection or sequestration as a co-benefit of other mitigation policies; or simply countries decide to not specify commitments under agriculture or land subsectors (Wiese et al., 2021).

The ambitious emissions reduction targets that concern agriculture and LULUCF will likely require subsidies to ensure that farmers and foresters to take action on the ground (Adenaeuer et al., 2023). The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents the main EU policy instrument for fostering farmers to implement sustainable agriculture (Savaresi et al., 2020). Under the new CAP, expected for the period 2023–2027, each EU country will be obliged to display higher ambition on environment and climate action compared to the previous programming period, and subsidies for beneficiaries will be conditioned on the uptake of more strict mandatory requirements. Furthermore, the Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020b) and the EU Farm to Fork strategy (European Commission, 2020a), have mentioned Carbon Farming as a new business model and regulatory framework for certification of carbon removals, aimed at incentivising EU farmers to transform practices through the availability of economic incentives provided by the CAP and other initiatives, including also voluntary carbon markets (European Commission, 2021e).

Member states’ visions and EU Commission proposals

Table 2 reports the clusters’ description and a summary of key information around each of these. In addition, it compares the three different sources of 2030 LULUCF emission/removal data: (i) the national projections With Additional Measures (WAM) countries’ projections (EEA, 2021) provided through the Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action, (ii) the revised LULUCF regulation (European Union, 2023) and (iii) the EU Reference Scenario 2020 (European Commission, 2021d).

Table 2. Characteristics of each cluster and the respective net GHG emissions (+) and removals (−).

CLUSTER	CLUSTERS’ EMISSION PROFILES		2030 LULUCF (MtCO2e)
	LULUCF	Total GHG excl. LULUCF	Reference scenario^1	National projections, WAM^2	Target LULUCF reg.^3
C-1	Large net sink	Low emission	−66	−82	−91
C-2	C-2A Low net emission	Low emission	−32	−53	−50
	C-2B Net sink	Low emission	11	19	13
C-3	Net emission	Large emission	−35	22	−31
C-4	Large net sink	Large emission	−136	−116	−151
FIXE			−258	−210	−310

¹ The EU Reference Scenario 2020 (European Commission, 2021d). ² The national projections With Additional Measures (WAM) (EEA, 2021). ³The revised regulation for the LULUCF sector (European Union, 2023). Countries belonging to each cluster as shown in Figure 1 are: Finland, Sweden and Romania (C-1); Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia (C-2); Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands (C-3); Germany (C-4); France, Italy, Poland, Spain (C-5).

Some differences emerge from the comparison across these clusters with data from the three sources. Overall the LULUCF sink envisaged by the revised LULUCF reg. is far larger than any of the projections indicate to 2030 (Figure 2). About half of the gap between the target set in the LULUCF reg. and the WAM projections is due to Germany (see section 3.1 for additional information), while the remaining half is almost attributable to the four countries in Cluster 4 (France, Italy, Poland, Spain). These 4 countries project rather large removals, but not enough to meet the LULUCF reg. targets; to meet these targets, they would then need to add more mitigation measures, likely focusing on LULUCF subsectors with larger mitigation potential, such as reforestation, cropland management and, when present, organic soil management. This holds especially true for Poland and Spain, which shows a gap between national projections and LULUCF reg. targets of 16 and 10 MtCO₂e, respectively, while for Italy and France is 2 and 8 MtCO₂e, respectively.

Figure 2. Distribution of the EU-27 net LULUCF CO₂e removal pathways according to different sources. The revised LULUF reg. target and the countries’ projections present the largest and the lowest removal value, respectively, in 2030 and the Reference Scenario is placed in between them.

Future estimates differ based on underlying assumptions used in the analysis, the methods and the data. These differences across the data sources hinder a thorough comparison. It was also not possible to compare directly the PaMs from LTSs with the projections and targets for LULUCF, because the information contained in many LTSs does not allow a quantitative assessment of the LULUCF contribution. Furthermore, a direct comparison is not feasible because the data sources have different time horizons (2030/2035 for national projections, Reference Scenario and LULUCF target, and 2050 for LTS); on the other hand, they do allow us to assess whether the short- and medium-term pathways, in the aggregate, are aligned with the EU long-term objectives (Figure 2).

It is also possible to assess projections against the LULUCF reg. targets. We found that 15 out of 27 MSs’ 2030 GHG emission projections differ from the targets in the LULUCF reg. (Figure 3). Therefore, it is likely that the climate change mitigation options planned by those 15 countries are not sufficient, and that they may need to either update existing policies or conceive, plan and implement new policies and actions to align with the required target. In fact, as the targets are included in an EU Regulation, they are legally binding and thus directly applicable in all MSs.

Figure 3. Comparison between the 2030 LULUCF emission/removal projections ‘With Additional Measures’ (submitted by EU countries under the Regulation (EU) 2018/1999), and the 2030 target calculated in the revised EU LULUCF reg. 2018/841; 15 out of 27 projections will not meet the European Commission target.

Worth noticing is that some countries, notably the Netherlands (NL), Denmark (DK), Ireland (IE) and Malta (ML), have a LULUCF target with a positive emission in 2030 (i.e. emissions may exceed their removals in LULUCF). Denmark, Ireland, and Malta plus Latvia, (all belonging to Cluster 2b) also project net emissions in 2030, so there is broad agreement between countries’ projections and the LULUCF reg. target.

We found that 45% of the EU countries plan larger removals than what is required by the revised LULUCF reg. This amount also relates to the emission allocation criteria established by the European Commission. In fact, the EU target of achieving net removals of −310 MtCO₂e in 2030 is distributed among the Member States in a way that reflects the ‘mitigation performance of the LULUCF sector in each Member State from 2016 to 2018’. One controversial feature of this allocation criterion is that some countries witnessed extraordinary disturbances in the years from 2016 to 2018 (used as reference years) and this in turn substantially affected the emission reduction target. For example, Portugal experienced severe wildfires in 2017 that led to about 539 921 ha of burnt area, which represents 498% of the average of the previous decennium (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2018). The calculation of the target could be substantially different if a longer or a different range of years is considered, since wildfires present strong inter-annual variability (Molina-Terrén et al., 2019).

Establishing country-level targets is challenging and has been widely discussed in all sectors. The ‘correct’ allocation framework does not exist, but rather adopting a set of transparent, scientific basis is needed (Richards et al., 2018; Vizzarri et al., 2021). The revised LULUCF reg. has the advantage of accounting for interannual variability of events that influence emissions (such as wildfires and other disturbances), even if the small-time interval considered (three years) may emphasize the effect of extraordinary events. The method applied in the revised LULUCF reg. has once important strength: simplicity, which comes at the cost of comprehensiveness.

The Impact Assessment of the 2030 Climate Target Plan of the European Commission informed and supported the preparation of the ‘Fit for 55’ package and the revised LULUCF reg. It proposed a more stringent contribution from the LULUCF sector to the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050, plus it outlined the needed policy actions (European Commission, 2020d). This Impact Assessment includes two high-sink scenarios, called ‘LULUCF+’ and ‘MIX’, which simulate respectively about ¬340 MtCO₂e and –295 MtCO₂e by 2030. Both scenarios entail many mitigation actions up to 2030 that are also reported by MSs in their LTSs. For example, some of the relevant actions discussed include optimization of forest management, afforestation projects, changes in harvest intensity, optimization of thinning, increases in bioenergy production and improvements in soil management (e.g. through rewetting and restoration). The management actions proposed by the European Commission accord with the PaMs envisaged by MSs in their LTSs. Nevertheless, from a quantitative point of view, MSs projections differ from the current Commission’s targets for MS and the ambition embedded in these.

Conclusions

Even though LTSs should represent the most comprehensive source of comparable information on the climate policy landscape across countries (Buylova et al., 2021), we found that overall, LTSs lack comprehensiveness for LULUCF. They do not transparently and accurately describe how to achieve the emissions reductions needed to meet national commitments under the Paris Agreement and the EU objectives. Most LTSs present general intentions, measures and objectives; 40% of them lack quantitative data on future LULUCF emission and removals. It is thus difficult to perform an ex-ante assessment of their expected performance. Expressing a quantified LULUCF target in the LTS would increase transparency and completeness, and it would facilitate their use and comparability across them. Furthermore, quantifying LULUCF long term targets in LTSs and identifying specific actions and monitoring their progress towards these would also enable coherent PaMs design under different policy frameworks (e.g. Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs). Also in Glasgow, at COP26, Parties recognized the importance of aligning NDCs with Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies. Furthermore, the land sector is affected by many important EU policies (e.g. the EU Forest Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU Adaptation Strategy), in this context, the LTSs could potentially look across these strategies from different sectors and policy perspectives, providing a synthesis and a comprehensive strategic framework of national climate policies for LULUCF, helping to achieve policy coherence.

From a qualitative point of view, national PaMs are coherent with the European Commission’s vision for a climate-neutral EU (European Commission, 2018) and with the building blocks that constitute the EU’s commitment to global climate action. What is not in line with the emission reduction targets adopted by the European Commission in the revision of the LULUCF reg., are the projections submitted by most countries. The majority of the MSs’ 2030 GHG emission projections differ widely from the targets proposed in the LULUCF reg. Therefore, it is likely that the climate change mitigation options planned by those countries are not yet sufficient; countries either need to update existing policies or conceive, plan and implement new policies and actions. Ideally these will focusing on those LULUCF subsectors with large mitigation potential and with large benefits in the short term National governments need to be more ambitious in selecting their mitigation targets, and to commit to fully integrate international and EU pledges into national laws. They also need to plan and implement a national governance approach, to achieve ambitious climate change mitigation and adaptation in a way that fully includes the land sector.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

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.

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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.