Objective
A. BACKGROUND
The third meeting of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held 1 to 10 December 1997 in Kyoto (Japan). The so-called Kyoto Protocol (FCCC/CP/1997/L.7/ADD 1) was adopted at this meeting. It includes concrete greenhouse gas emission limitation, reduction commitments with timetable for the industrialised countries (the so-called Annex 1 countries) and reporting duties for net CO2 emissions. This can be regarded as an important step towards meeting the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC: stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
There is considerable public concern about the future quality of the European environment.
Measures for reducing CO2 emissions were strongly supported by the EU (Berlin Mandate in March 1995, UNGASS in June 1997, Kyoto Protocol in December 1997). The leading role of the EU, in promoting the International Panel on Forests (IPF) and in launching an Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) in the United Nations, gives another sound basis to this Action. Previous resolutions of EU Ministerial Conferences (Strasbourg, Helsinki and Lisbon) already acknowledged the protection of C-sinks. Trees and forest ecosystems have the ability to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and thus offer an opportunity to mitigate climate change. Depending on the method used and on the country, forests could have taken up between 1% and 40% of national anthropogenic emissions of CO2 in the EU.
The EU should jointly report by 2005 the 1990 net emission reference values in a transparent and verifiable manner according to the Kyoto Protocol. To this end, Parties of the Kyoto Protocol "shall take steps to share their experience and exchange information on such policies and measures, including ways for improving their comparability, transparency and effectiveness". In the proposed COST Action, emphasis will be put on the quantification of carbon storage in the forest ecosystems and on the understanding of linkages between human activities and climate change, particularly the role of forests and forestry. The proposed COST Action will integrate natural, socio-economical as well as methodological aspects of cross-cutting issues relevant for reporting and decision-making at EU level.
From the wording used in the protocol it is still not clear which carbon pools should be taken into account and how limited activities should be defined. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided guidelines on how to calculate and report pool changes for land-use and forestry, but calculation and reporting methods will only be completely finalised in May 2000. M. Cannel (ITE) identifies four inter-related problems in this respect. The first is to provide information on country experiences to help take forward the IPCC effort to improve methods to calculate national-scale CO2 removals and emissions in different IPCC categories. The second is to estimate uncertainties that arise from inadequate data and model assumptions. The third is to define flux categories that are due to human influence (e.g. soil erosion, CO2 and N fertilisation). Lastly, the sinks, sources and fluxes must be secure over a reasonable time scale given possible vulnerability to factors such as natural disturbances (fire, insect attacks) as weather extremes or climate change itself.
Recent debates have clarified that the problems connected with these environmental issues are complex and need scientific contributions from different disciplines. The limited use of knowledge of general interest should now foster a scientific approach where data from different disciplines are integrated. Such an approach needs a close collaboration between natural, social and economical scientists. The present Action takes these facts into consideration and approaches these scientific problems in a multidisciplinary way. The collective reporting duty at the EU level, and the umbrella for reducing greenhouse gasses emissions by overall 8% in EU countries give other basis for activities focused on the roles of the "European forests" within the framework of a COST Action.
This Action is a pioneering attempt to co-ordinate research, to exchange experience and knowledge and to standardise greenhouse gasses emissions accounting for forests over Europe. We will match, within four years in this COST Action, scientific with political agendas.
B. OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS
The main objective of the Action is to develop a commonly agreed carbon accounting strategy on the contribution of the European forests in achieving the commitments taken in the Kyoto Protocol. Forest management practices, forestry products and their utilisation are included in this COST Action. Indeed, interactions between natural and socio-economical systems in this matter have shown the relevance of multidisciplinary approaches. Therefore, the second objective of this Action is to establish a multidisciplinary platform involving European scientists with different background. This platform will help to put scientific results and knowledge gained in a close collaboration between natural, social and economy scientists into a common framework.
As the third objective, the information of the public about predicted changes in forest ecosystems and their consequences in the socio-economic context for various European forest regions will be raised, including some aspects of the life cycle of forest products, complementary to those in the COST Action E9. Coordination, exchange of expertise and standard methods are corner-stones in the Kyoto Protocol. Multidisciplinary research and transfer of knowledge on the impacts of climatic change on trees and forests still need to be developed. The understanding of these processes and the methodological issues associated with mitigation, equity, discount rates, decision making, uncertainties, offset trading, joint implementation programmes, integrated assessment modelling and evaluation of policy options will be evaluated and fine tuned.
C. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME
C.1. Content
Parties of the UNFCCC are required to protect and enhance sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases. Parties are also asked to report CO2 removals and emissions on sinks and source categories, according to IPCC methodologies. The IPCC guidelines describe default methods, but allow for methods to be used which are appropriate to "national conditions" and state that 'national experts' may chose to use an entirely different methodology if they believe this better reflects their "national situation".
Field experiments, laboratory studies, modelling and recent national forest inventories, make it possible to construct partial inventories of the principal terrestrial sources, sinks and fluxes of carbon for approximately the year 1990. EU countries agreed to reduce their overall greenhouse gasses emissions by at least 8% below the 1990 levels during the first commitment period 2008 to 2012. The EU 8% reduction umbrella pleads in favour for a concerted methodological approach for allowing "national data" to consolidate the EU-budgeting reporting duty. This multidisciplinary project requires input data from forest inventories, forest management practices, perspectives of use of forestry products and socio-economics.
Collaboration with COST Action E9 is implicit. The present Action will concentrate on carbon, mainly at ecosystem and stand level. COST Action E9 has a much broader scope, ranging from tree growth in the forest to the recycling of end products. It covers also several aspects of the ecosystem balance: water, energy, nitrogen, etc. The input of this Action into E9 has to be seen as a detailed study of the carbon balance at the ecosystem level. Multidisciplinary in this perspective is related to the architecture of scientific disciplines, indicating a coordinated scientific project in which participants have different backgrounds. The cooperation among them is flexible. Gradually, results will be formulated in the comprehensive context of the contribution of forests, forest management practices and utilisation of forestry products in achieving the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol.
The COST Action will be coordinated by a multidisciplinary management committee that will guarantee an optimal management, task distribution amongst the participating countries and dissemination of the results. Not all aspects will be analysed in all participating countries, but it will be a first priority for the management committee, involving a well-balanced panel of scientists from different disciplines in all countries, to develop a set of priorities and projects, which will contribute to a comprehensive analysis and to foster exchange of information.
The scientific programme for establishing the best EU methodology(ies) for assessing C-sequestration in forest ecosystems according to their management will be carried out according to the following perspectives: Estimation of the C-balance in forests for the calculation of greenhouse gases net emissions for the 1990 reference year, according several methods.
- Evaluation of the forest management practices to maximise C-sequestration in forest ecosystems (e.g. afforestation, deforestation, reforestation, thinning, frequency of both natural and human-made disturbances, steady C-uptakes, management practices for conservation of C-pools, etc.).
- Studies, focused on forest matters, on a number of flexible mechanisms that may help the Annex 1 countries to meet emission limitation and reduction targets. These are emission trading, joint implementation among the Annex 1 countries and clean development mechanisms. Potentials of these mechanisms for European countries will be examined.
C.2. Scope of the working groups
For establishing the best EU methodology(ies) (i) to assess C-sequestration in forest ecosystems and (ii) to analyse the effects of forest management practices, the following disciplines are within the scope of the two Working Groups of this COST Action:
- Forest ecology: A better understanding of the C-sequestration mechanisms in forest ecosystems and hence their productivity and functioning under changing conditions. Forest management: Recommendations on sustainable use of the forests for various European regions under changing atmospheric conditions, including also risks for disturbances, such as forest fire, avalanche and flooding.
- Scientific support plan for policy makers: Decision making, knowledge, opinion formation and readiness for political action will be analysed, in the perspective of increasing general interest in forests and reduction of CO2 emissions.
- Information: Stimulation of public debates and round tables will help to identify the priorities in forest matters for professionals and the average citizens.
C.3. Working groups
This Action revolves around two working groups dealing with inventory of C-pools and C-pools changes and management practices of forests to maximise C-sequestration as a new added value for the "multi-purpose forestry".
Working Group I (WG I): Inventory of sinks and sources in the perspective of net C-emission reporting.
WG I will be articulated around (i) boreal and mountainous forests, (ii) temperate forests, (iii) Mediterranean forests and (iv) modelling. Standardised methods will help to report 1990 reference values for C-sequestration in forest ecosystems and thereafter changes in pools and fluxes during the commitment period 2008 to 2012.
WGI will concentrate on forest ecology, in particular on the C-cycle, national inventories of terrestrial C-sources and sinks, analyse the possibilities to match the existing databases on soil, land cover, land-use change to construct a comprehensive inventory of the principal terrestrial sources and sinks of carbon. From this methodological working group, the following questions will be answered for a commonly agreed European platform: How should the monitoring be done? How should the reporting be accomplished? Can IPCC guidelines be used or do they need to be improved and how? What are the best adapted methods for calculating changes in C-pools? What are the best estimates of C-sequestration in forest ecosystems?
Working Group II (WG II): Analysis of forest management practices
Trees are considered as pumps for transferring carbon from the atmosphere to the soil in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. Impacts of forests over the commitment period will be evaluated and rules towards achieving an optimal sequestration of carbon in the managed forest ecosystems will be formulated. Carbon balance models at various scales (like CO2-FIX, GORCAM, CBM-CFS2, Deware, 1991) will help to quantify the fluxes and pools for many types of forests including their management practices.
The Kyoto Protocol generated confusion around the terms "afforestation, reforestation and deforestation". WGII will also analyse the role of these activities. Finally, the significance of the so called "Kyoto forests" will be compared to forests and forestry in general for the EU.
D. ORGANIZATION AND TIME TABLE
D.1. Organisation structure
From the administrative point of view, the Management Committee will strictly follow the rules and procedures for implementing COST Actions (see COST 400/94 - 10 October 1995). From the scientific point of view, because of its multidisciplinary approach, the Management Committee will achieve the coordination following the strategy described below.
The first step of the core group of the management committee is to define the structure and to formulate the overall strategy to be followed for the whole co-ordinated project. To reach best conditions for a multidisciplinary approach, best comparability between the sub-projects and convergence amongst the various methodologies to be tested, a glossary, largely based on existing documents, will guarantee the terminological consistency of the proposed work. Questions to guide the programme will be formulated. They will help to lead the whole action towards a common statement. This will give a sound basis for the mid-term evaluation of the programme. It will involve all the definitions, the objectives and the deadlines where milestones in scientific knowledge will contribute to clarify the political agendas.
The second step for the core group will fine tune the functional description of the whole coordinated project. This will develop the reciprocal relations and influences between the two working groups. It will describe the management and the task distribution amongst the participating countries and the working groups. The functional description will also give information on the exchange of data and results between all participants. Emphasis will be put on publications, proceedings of the meetings and exchange of information including the short-term scientific missions. An URL clearinghouse will help spreading the information.
The third step for the core group, will be the adjustment of the structural and functional description of the problem to the network and the timetable, matching as good as possible the political agenda.
The three steps will be prepared, organised by the management committee and published. At the beginning of the new Action the participants will highlight on their relationships and interactions to the management committee.
D.2. Timetable
The tentative timetable is given below. Even if working groups will be free to organise their meetings, according to their needs, it is the intention of the COST Action to bring all the working groups together once a year to present results and progresses towards objectives.
Multidisciplinary Management Committee
C-Inventory Forest management
WG I WG II
Kick-off
Year 1
Structure and functional description
Glossary, definitions, objectives, milestones
and deadlines
Year 2
Working session I * on methodologies
Year 3
Working session II on methodologies
Year 4
Scientific synthesis and executive summary
- Revised IPCC guidelines will be available from May 2000.
E. ECONOMIC DIMENSION
The following COST countries have actively participated in the preparation of the Action:
Belgium, Italy, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. All scientists associated to the drafting of this document are listed in Annex 1. Potentially, all countries associated to COST could sign the Memorandum of Understanding.
An estimation has been made of the total scale of the Action over a four year period on the basis of estimates by the representatives of the above countries: it is around EUR 16 million (over a 4-year period, including senior scientists, post-docs, PhD students and technicians). The overall cost of the activities, which will be carried out under coordination of the Action, has been estimated at around EUR 180 thousand, assuming that 18 countries will be involved in this activity.
This estimate is valid on the assumption that all countries mentioned above will participate in the Action. Any departure from this, will change the total cost accordingly.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Coordinator
Belgium
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