Wood Products

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Wood Products Climate Change Policies -Tools
to promote wood as green building?

• The roles of wood in green building and green
  building effects on the forest sector in the
  UNECE region
• 20 October 2008, Rome, Italy

by Sebastian Hetsch UNECE/FAO Timber Section
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Overview

1. Current Climate Policy Framework
2. Contributions of Wood Products to Climate Change
   Mitigation
3. Accounting methods for HWP
4. HWP accounting as a tool to promote wood?

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1. Climate Policy Framework

• Forests and Climate Change
• Carbon sequestrations and storage in forests
• Wood energy substitutes fossil energy
• Wood raw material substitutes non-renewable
  material and storing carbon for a limited time

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1. Climate Policy Framework

• Forest worldwide a source of GHG (20)

• Sink in the UNECE region

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1. Climate Policy Framework

• Kyoto Protocol
• Article 3.3 Afforestation, Reforestation,
  Deforestation
• Article 3.4 Forest management
• Wood products are not explicitly included

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2. Contributions of Wood Products

• Two-fold Impact of Wood Products
• Substituting more energy- and emission-intensive
  material
• Storing carbon in products for a limited time

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2. Contributions of Wood Products

• Substitution
• Implicitly included in Kyoto (if domestically
  produced or in Annex-I countries)
• Major effect for offsetting GHG emission, IF from
  sustainable sources
• Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) analyse effects

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2. Contributions of Wood Products

• Storage
• Carbon stored in Wood products
• Delay of emission
• For a single product zero-sum game
• Positive GHG effects only on national level, if
  increase in stocks
• n

source S Rueter
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2. Contributions of Wood Products

• Kyoto Protocol
• Wood Products currently excluded from accounting
• Possible consideration under post-2012 climate
  regime
• National reporting systems (Australia, Canada,
  UK, USA)

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3. Accounting methods

• Different approaches
• IPCC default (immediate emission)
• Stock change
• Production approach
• Atmospheric flow
• Who is liable for carbon emissions?

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3. Accounting methods

• Modeling shows that carbon pool has increased
  over last decades
• Different approaches result in different results
  (default approach most conservative)

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USA Estimated Emissions
Source Perez-Garcia, University of Washington
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Canada Estimated Emissions
Source Perez-Garcia, University of Washington
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Japan Estimated Emissions
Source Perez-Garcia, University of Washington
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4. Tools to promote the use of wood?

• -gt no agreement on accounting yet
• Timing is crucial
• If included in post-Kyoto agreement, a proposal
  is needed by mid-2009
• Agreement on accounting approach is needed
• Further negotiations in Poznan (Dec 2008)

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4. Tools to promote the use of wood?

• Main goal has to be reducing total GHG emissions
  (storage, substitution, efficiency)
• adequate monitoring is needed
• Acknowledging that wood products can contribute,
  when coming from sustainably managed forests
  (which is the case in UNECE region)
• Passing on potential benefits on a national
  level difficult to implement

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4. Tools to promote the use of wood?

• Not accounting for HWP could penalize wood
  harvesting in countries accounting for forest
  managment
• When account for HWP it has to ensured that wood
  is from sustainably managed sources

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4. Tools to promote the use of wood?

• Carbon storage is a zero-sum game, unless the
  storage increases
• Wood promotion, green building policies can help
  to increase the stock
• HWP accounting would be an incentive for more use
  of wood in long-lived material
• Depending on carbon price
• Depending on how benefits are transfered to
  consumers/producers
• Depending on HWP accounting systems

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Further information

• Workshop on Harvested Wood Products in the
  context of Climate Change Policies (9-10 Sep
  2008)
• www.unece.org/timber/workshops/2008/hwp/documents.
  htm
• Policy Dialogue on The Role of Wood Products in
  Climate Change Mitigation (21 Oct 2008)
• www.unece.org/timber/docs/tc-sessions/tc-66/hwp.ht
  m

TOMORROW 1430
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Thank you for your attention!

• Contact
• Sebastian Hetsch, UNECE/FAO Timber Section
• email sebastian.hetsch_at_unece.org
• internet www.unece.org/timber

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Scenarios and their main elements
Basic principle of scenario building Scenarios
are based on elements of realistic policies as
regards harvesting, consumption, domestic wood
processing / production.
Optimized increment Mio. m3 Optimized increment Mio. m3 Kyoto optimized Mio. m3 Reduced tending Mio. m3 Baseline Mio. m3
Yield 9,2 9,2 8,5 3,0 5,9
Swiss harvest 90 90 75 - 40 20
Building Energy Building
Consumption
HWP (without pp) 4,5 80 2,5 0 4,5 80 1,9 - 24 3,0 20
Forest fuelwood 2,8 122 4,9 344 2,1 67 0,2 - 81 1,5 20
Foreign trade
Exports / Imports of wood products constant constant constant constant constant
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CO2 Sink/Emissions from HWP - Global Effects
Source Peter Hofer, Geopartner, Switzerland
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CO2 Sinks/Emissions from HWP - Effects in
Switzerland
Source Peter Hofer, Geopartner, Switzerland
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Global HWP Sink in Tg C
Source Perez-Garcia, University of Washington