Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Report2024Open access

Strategic wood availability in Europe

Jonsson, Ragnar

Abstract

Ambitious climate change mitigation policies are on one side increasing the EU demand for woody biomass, while on the other potentially restricting the supply thereof. Hence, the amended Renewable Energy Directive (“RED III”) aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the EU's overall energy consumption to 42.5% by 2030 from the current share of 23%. Further, the updated land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) regulation sets ambitious, binding, national target for the increase of net greenhouse gas removals for the period 2026-2030, which together will deliver the collective EU target of 310 Mt CO2 equivalent of net removals in the LULUCF sector in 2030 (EU, 2023). For member states already using their forests intensively, these carbon sink targets are likely to hinder an increase in fellings; rather they will require lower levels of felling.

Additionally, the ongoing geopolitical crisis related to the Ukraine war has changed the conditions as regards both the availability and demand of/for woody biomass in the EU. Hence, the Council of the EU banned the import of most of the timber and timber products from Russia and Belarus covered by the EU Timber Regulation from entering the EU in 2022, directly negatively affecting the supply of woody biomass on the EU market. In addition, elevated electricity prices within the EU have been reinforced by sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons and the sabotage of the Nordstream natural gas pipelines. This has further increased the competition for woody biomass from energy uses.

Accordingly, the overriding purpose of the study ̶applying the methods and data used by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in setting up wood resource balance sheets ̶ is to provide an assessment of the future supply and demand of woody biomass within Europe. The results clearly suggests that, even a future more favorable in the sense of wood availability ̶ less ambitious RED targets and Europe finding replacements for wood imports from the Russian federation and Belarus ̶ would be extremely challenging. Thus, increasing fellings to meet the demand for material and energy could not be accomplished without decreasing the forest carbon sink, thereby making it all but impossible to reach the 2030 LULUCF target.

Keywords

climate; energy, policy; geopolitical; wood resource balance; forest-based industry

Published in

Rapport (Institutionen för energi och teknik, SLU)
2024, number: 128Publisher: Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences