Simulating future wood consumption and the impacts on Europe's forest sink to 2070

As forest management is increasingly influenced by climate change and climate change policy, among other factors, assessing carbon budget dynamics is essential to forecast the impacts of future wood consumption on carbon sequestration. To assess plausible future forest management options at EU level and their impacts on the forest carbon sink until 2070, we propose different scenarios using a combination of socio-economic pathways and various levels of intensity of forest removal. European Union Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) targets define specific objectives for 2030 and for 2050, hence we focus on reporting results for those years. The annual wood harvest in the EU amounted to 1.1 m3 yr-1 per capita in 2021. We simulate future wood consumption by contrasting socio-economic pathways where harvest either increases to 1.4 m3 yr-1 per capita or decreases to 0.9 cubic meters per year per capita by 2050. Projections for the high consumption scenario show that an intensified use of non-merchantable wood resources would reduce the area affected by direct management activities, and the forest carbon sink would almost meet the EU LULUCF target for forest land, estimated at -420 million tonnes Carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2 e) per year in 2030. Thereafter, however, the forest carbon sink will deteriorate rapidly due to increased wood consumption. Only a prolonged reduction in wood consumption as illustrated by the Fair redistribution scenario will keep the forest carbon budget above the European Union target until 2050 and thereafter. Meanwhile, our analyses demonstrate that the need to increase the forest carbon sink to mitigate climate change could be challenged by an increase in future harvest intensity and wood utilization.