The article below points you to an important new paper – Carbon Costs of Global Wood Harvests, ( The carbon costs of global wood harvests | Nature ) .
It is important information we can use to urge other members of Congress to support Booker’s “Forest Biomass Emissions” bill – legislation Sierra Club supports.
“The Forest Biomass Emissions Act of 2024 would direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with forest biomass combustion for electricity and study the impact of the industry on communities living in direct proximity to forest biomass industrial areas, including mills.”
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“What Economics Does — or Doesn’t — Tell Us About the Climate Consequences of Using Wood” June 26, 2024
How Should We Assess the Climate Costs of Harvesting Wood? | World Resources Institute (wri.org)
By Tim Searchinger and Steve Berry
To reduce global carbon emissions, should people harvest and use more wood or less? This question underlies the merits of policies that encourage power plants and heating facilities to burn more wood pellets and builders to construct more tall wood buildings. As one illustration of the question’s importance, the U.S. government has recently requested input on whether a lucrative tax credit for carbon-neutral electricity should apply to burning wood.
In the Carbon Costs of Global Wood Harvests, published in Nature in 2023, ( The carbon costs of global wood harvests | Nature ) WRI researchers using a biophysical model estimated that annual wood harvests over the next few decades will emit 3.5-4.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. That is more than 3 times the world’s current annual average aviation emissions. These wood-harvest emissions occur because the great majority of carbon stored in trees is released to the atmosphere after harvest when roots and slash decompose; as most wood is burned directly for heat or electricity or for energy at sawmills or paper mills; and when discarded paper products, furniture and other wood products decompose or burn. Another recent paper in Nature found that the word’s remaining forests have lost even more carbon, primarily due to harvesting wood, than was lost historically by converting forests to agriculture (other studies have found similar results1). Based on these analyses, a natural climate solution would involve harvesting less wood and letting more forests regrow. This would store more carbon as well as enhance forest biodiversity.