Conquering space and time

The challenge of emissions from land use change

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)Bogor, Indonesia

The EU Renewable Energy Directive (EU-RED) abandons the Kyoto Protocol restriction of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions to those occurring within national borders, it makes EU bioenergy users responsible for supply-chain emissions throughout the world.However, problems arise from the EU-RED’s continuation of the Kyoto Protocol land-typesplus-activities approach and disregard for the time lag between emissions from forest-sourced biomass and compensating removals of CO2 from the atmosphere.The land-types-plus-activities approach leads to omissions, such as emissions from forests that remain forests. While not a major issue for biofuels, this seriously underestimates the CO2 profile of forest-sourced biomass for heat and power.The EU-RED’s failure to address the time lag means that bioenergy approved by EU-RED can be used to meet targets even though significant increases in emissions occur during the time horizon of the targets.These problems can be resolved through a well-designed eligibility formula. A formulacovering timing of increases and losses in all carbon pools would ensure that bioenergy reduces greenhouse gas emissions without needing to prohibit actions on specific land types.