Meeting GHG reduction targets requires accounting for all forest sector emissions

Heat trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) are being added to the atmosphere at an accelerating rate by fossil fuel combustion and land use change. Climate change consequences were recently described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United States National Climate Assessment (USGCRP 2018). The IPCC Special Report (IPCC 2018), Global Warming of 1.5 °C, concludes that to keep global average temperature below 1.5 °C by 2100, it is essential to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 45% by 2030, while substantially increasing the removal of atmospheric CO₂. Both reports emphasize the need to increase atmospheric CO₂ removal strategies by forests in addition to sustaining current forest carbon uptake (Houghton and Nassikas 2018). Some states in the US have set targets for reducing GHGs that include forest climate mitigation options (Anderson et al 2017, Law et al 2018), yet consistent, rigorous accounting methods are required for evaluating options. Challenges include determining the extent that forests, harvest operations, and wood products affect GHG budgets and emissions accountability.

The most recent global carbon budget estimate indicates that land-based sinks remove 29% of anthropogenic emissions (including land use change) with a significant contribution from forests (Le Quéré et al 2018). However, none of the agreements or policies (IPCC 2006, NRCS 2010, Brown et al 2014, Doe 2017, EPA 2017, Duncan 2017) provides clear and consistent procedures for quantitatively assessing the extent forests and forest products are increasing or reducing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Assessments are challenging because they involve components that require multiple types of expertise and accounting methods (i.e. forest ecosystem processes, wood products, and inherently uncertain substitution credits). Methods are often in disagreement over the wood product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) assumption of a priori carbon neutrality, where biogenic emissions from the combustion and decomposition of wood is ignored because the carbon released from wood is assumed to be replaced by subsequent tree growth in the following decades (EPA 2016). Despite a multitude of analyses that recognize that the assumption is fundamentally flawed (Harmon et al 1996, Gunn et al 2011, Haberl et al 2012, Schulze et al 2012, Buchholz et al 2016, Booth 2018), it continues to be used in mitigation analyses, particularly for wood bioenergy.

Forests are sustainable net sinks as long as forest carbon uptake from the atmosphere exceeds emissions from harvesting, wood product use and decomposition, and wildfire. Wood products ultimately release CO₂ to the atmosphere as they are manufactured, disposed of, and decompose or are burned. However, because of concerns about double-counting, significant emissions associated with harvest and wood product use have not been counted for any sector (EPA 2018). These emissions are often not included in state CO₂ budget estimates (Brown et al 2014, Oregon Global Warming Commission 2017), even when they are included in national budgets (EPA 2017) (table S1 is available online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/14/095005/mmedia). If US states intend to use forests for mitigation strategies, they must account for all contributing sources and sinks of forests and forest-derived products (Stockmann et al 2012, IPCC 2014).

By focusing on a region with sufficient information to conduct a meaningful LCA, we demonstrate how a quantitative assessment of forests, management practices and wood products can assess the actual role played by forests and forestry practices in managing atmospheric CO₂. We calculate the regional forest carbon balance (from 2001 to 2016) using observations from over 24 000 forest inventory plots in Washington, Oregon, and California (states with GHG reduction mandates). Net forest sector carbon balance is quantified using an improved LCA including harvest, transportation, manufacturing, wood product pool storage and decay, emissions associated with fire, and substitution for both building construction and energy production. We specifically consider global warming potential associated with carbon dioxide and do not include additional GHGs such as nitrous oxide and methane. Our aim is to provide an accurate cradle-to-grave, transparent and transferable accounting method of all forest-derived carbon for other states and countries with GHG reduction mandates (figure 1; box 1; figure S1; tables S2–S6).

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Western US forest ecosystem CO₂ balance (2001–2016)

Forest carbon uptake and release (net ecosystem production (NEP); figure 1(a)) controlled by ecosystem biological processes is calculated as the balance between forest carbon uptake (net primary production (NPP)) and forest carbon release through the decomposition of dead organic matter (heterotrophic respiration; R_h). In this study, a negative number indicates a net carbon sink (removal from the atmosphere) and a positive number indicates a net carbon source (addition to the atmosphere). The coastal Western US states together are a strong forest carbon sink with NEP of −292 ± 36 million metric tonnes (MMT) CO₂e per year (−857 g CO₂e m⁻² yr⁻¹) (table 1; table S1), and account for approximately 60% of total Western US forest NEP (coastal, southwestern, and intermountain regions).

Table 1.  Average annual total fluxes by state and region from 2001 to 2016. All units are in million MT CO₂e. Negative numbers indicate a carbon sink (CO₂ is being removed from the atmosphere). The more negative the number, the stronger the sink. Grey shading is used to indicate net values that represent carbon sink strength both before and after removals are accounted for.

Ecosystem	Washington	Oregon	California	Total
1. Forested area (million hectares)	9.7	12.4	11.9	34.0
2. Net ecosystem production (NEP)	−89.9	−102.0	−99.8	−291.6
3. Fire emissions	5.1	5.3	10.3	20.7
4. Harvest removals	18.5	30.5	11.5	60.5
Net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) (sum of rows 1 through 4)	− 66.4	−66.2	−78.0	−210.5
Forest industry	Washington	Oregon	California	Total
5. Harvest residue combustion (onsite)	3.9	6.5	2.5	12.9
6. Harvest, transportation, manufacturing (FFE emissions)	2.8	4.6	1.6	9.0
7. Wood product pool annual inputs	−18.5	−30.5	−11.5	−60.5
8. Landfill annual inputs (from products)	−6.8	−11.9	−4.2	−22.9
9. Wood manufacturing losses	3.9	6.5	3.9	14.3
10. Wood product and landfill decomposition	21.4	36.2	13.3	71.0
Net forest sector carbon balance (NECB + sum of rows 5 through 10)	−59.5	−54.7	−72.4	−186.6
11. Wood product substitution (wood)	−3.0	−4.9	−1.6	−9.4
12. Wood product substitution (energy)	−1.8	−3.0	−1.8	−6.6
Net forest sector carbon balance (with credits; NECB + sum of rows 5 through 12)	−64.3	−62.6	−75.8	−202.7

In addition to NEP, disturbances from harvest and wildfire influence estimates of net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB = NEP minus losses Chapin et al 2006; figure 1(a)). In the Western US states, the significant carbon losses from the forest are primarily from removals of wood through harvest, decomposition or burning of aboveground and belowground harvest residues, and wildfire (Law and Waring 2015). Significant harvest has been occurring in the western US since the early 20th century (figure S2). Up to 40% of the harvested wood does not become a product and the products themselves decay over time, resulting in product accumulation much smaller than the total amount harvested (figure 2(a); solid line) (Harmon et al 1996, Dymond 2012, Williams et al 2016, EPA 2017). Emissions include combustion of wood that does not become a product, combustion for energy, decomposition and/or combustion at end-of-life (table 1; rows 5, 6, 9, and 10). When these carbon losses are accounted for, these forests remain significant carbon sinks at −187 ± 33 MMT CO₂e per year (−551 g CO₂e m⁻² yr⁻¹), with the largest sink in California (40%) followed by Oregon (33%) and Washington (27%). Despite California having twice the fire emissions of the other states (∼10 versus ∼5 MMT CO₂e yr⁻¹ per state) the ranking is due to much lower harvest removals in California (∼12 MMT CO₂e yr⁻¹) compared to almost double in Washington (∼20 MMT CO₂e yr⁻¹) and triple in Oregon (∼31 MMT CO₂e yr⁻¹). Fire emissions are a third of harvest removals region-wide.

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Building on our earlier work (Harmon et al 1996, Hudiburg et al 2011, Law et al 2018), we developed a modified cradle-to-grave model (Forest-GHG) for combining the balance of carbon captured in forest ecosystems, wood product use, lifetime emissions, and eventual return to the atmosphere or long-term storage in landfills. Forest-GHG tracks emissions associated with harvest of wood and manufacturing, transport and use of wood products. Harvest removals result in immediate (combustion of residues on-site or as mill residues with and without energy recapture), fast (short-lived products such as paper), decadal (long-lived products such as wood) and centuries-long (older buildings and land-filled) timeframes before emissions are released back to the atmosphere (figures 1(b) and S1). Our model includes seven product pools and temporally dynamic recycling and landfill rates. Most importantly, we now include a more mechanistic representation of longer-term structural wood in buildings, by moving beyond a simple half-life with exponential decay (figure 3 and SI methods and SI tables 2–6). Our new building cohort-component method tracks decay of short- and long-lived building components annually, and the lag time associated with these losses (figure S3). Our wood bioenergy substitution credits (Sathre and O'Connor 2010) include wood waste from harvest, mill residues, and wood products displacement of more fossil fuel intensive materials.

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Using our component tracking LCA, we found that of the ∼10 700 MMT CO₂e of wood harvested in all three states since 1900 (figure 2), only 2028 MMT CO₂e are currently stored in wood products with half stored in Oregon (1043 MMT CO₂e). In just over 100 years, Oregon has removed the equivalent of all live trees in the state's Coast Range forests (Law et al 2018), and returned 65% to the atmosphere and transferred 16% to landfills. Even though these are some of the most productive and carbon dense forests in the world (Hudiburg et al 2009), the carbon accumulated in much of the removed biomass took up to 800 years to accumulate—and cannot be recovered if current management practices continue.

Forest harvest-related emissions have averaged 107 MMT CO₂e annually from 2001 to 2016 (table 1; row 5, 6, 9, and 10). Emissions are highest from decay of the wood product pool that has been accumulating for over 100 years (table 1 row 10; figures 3 and S3). This is after accounting for recycling and semi-permanent storage in landfills. Structural wood product decay for long- and short-term components (wood in buildings; figure 3) account for about 30%–35% of wood product and landfill decomposition while paper and non-building wood products account for about 65%–70%. Under this complete accounting, the lowest contribution to overall emissions is from fossil fuel usage during harvest, transportation, and manufacturing, i.e. less than 10% of total wood product-related emissions in the three states.

We found that wood-related substitution for construction materials (0.54 fossil fuel carbon emissions avoided per unit carbon of wood; table 1 row 11) and energy (0.68 fossil fuel carbon emissions avoided; table 1 row 12) may offset 18% of forest industry emissions. This assumes 50% of wood-derived construction products are substituted for a non-wood product and that 75% of mill residues are substituted for fossil fuel energy (Berg et al 2016).

We varied the maximum average life spans of the wood products used in construction (e.g. buildings) to examine its effect on emissions estimates. Emissions are minimally reduced by 2%–4% in each state when a longer average maximum lifespan is used (100 years) for the long-term building components and minimally increased by 2%–3% when a shorter average maximum lifespan is used (50 years, which is the mean lifetime of buildings in the US EPA 2013).

Combined, the US west coast state forest sector (cradle-to-grave) is a net carbon sink, removing ∼187 MMT CO₂e annually from the atmosphere and potentially reducing fossil fuel emissions by up to another 20 MMT CO₂e through product and energy substitution. Harvest-related emissions reduce the natural sink (NEP—Fire) by 34, 46, and 27% for Washington, Oregon, and California, respectively. When substitution credits are included, this changes to reductions of 27%, 37%, and 23%. Harvest rates have been highest in Oregon (table 1), contributing to increasing wood product emissions and the largest reductions to forest sink capacity.

NECB is a good estimate of ecosystem carbon uptake, e.g. for carbon offsets programs (Anderson et al 2017), and can be compared spatially with changing environmental conditions or disturbances, but is an incomplete calculation of the entire forest sector emissions. It does not include emissions from wood products caused by machinery, transport, manufacturing and losses—emissions that can equal up to 85% of the total versus 15% from fire, insects, and land use change (Williams et al 2016). Nor does it account for the storage and subsequent release of carbon in varying end uses with varied product lifetimes. Given that not all harvested wood is an immediate source to the atmosphere and very little harvested wood is stored in perpetuity, it is essential to track associated emissions over time. For state- or region-level carbon budgets, a cradle-to-grave carbon LCA should be combined with the ecosystem carbon balance (NEP and NECB) to account for how much the forestry sector is contributing to or offsetting total carbon emissions.

If wood buildings are replaced by wood buildings, substitution is not occurring, and because wood is preferred for construction of single-family housing in North America, some of our substitution values are overestimated (Sathre and O'Connor 2010). Wood products store carbon temporarily, and a larger wood product pool increases decomposition emissions over time (figure 3). This emphasizes that increasing the wood product carbon sink will require shifts in product allocation from short-term to long-term pools such as reclaimed (re-used) wood products from demolition of buildings, and reduction of product manufacturing losses (EPA 2016). Clearly, there is potential for climate mitigation by using forests to sequester carbon in biomass and reduce losses associated with the wood product chain (Law et al 2018).

It is argued that there may be reductions in fossil carbon emissions when wood is substituted for more fossil fuel intensive building materials (e.g. steel or concrete) or used as an alternative energy source (Butarbutar et al 2016). Substitution is a one-time credit in the year of the input. Studies have reported a range of substitution displacement factors (from negative to positive displacement; Sathre and O'Connor 2010, Smyth et al 2017), but we found no study that has tracked the actual amount of construction product substitution that is occurring or has occurred in the past in the United States. This makes substitution one of the most uncertain parts of this carbon budget. It may be more easily tracked in the fossil fuel sector through a decrease in emissions because of reduction in product supply, in which case it would be double counting to then include it as a credit for the forest sector. We show results with and without the substitution credit (a decrease in forest sector emissions) because it cannot be verified. We show the potential impact it has on the overall forest sector carbon sink, even though the displacement factor may be unrealistically high (Smyth et al 2017, Dugan et al 2018). For forest sector emissions assessments, the uncertainty suggests exclusion of the credit.

Currently, state's GHG accounting budgets are incorrect because they are not full cradle-to-grave estimates of all CO₂ emissions associated with forest natural processes and human influences. For accurate GHG accounting, these emissions should be included in the forestry sector as they are not accounted for by state's energy and transportation sectors (IPCC 2006) (table S1). The US EPA reported average fossil fuel CO₂ emissions of 491 MMT CO₂e yr⁻¹ for the three states combined (2013–2016). Forest industry harvest, transportation, and manufacturing fossil fuel emissions are included in this total. However, it is unclear to what extent wood product decay and combustion emissions are also counted in state budgets. In Oregon, they are not included at all, resulting in state CO₂ emissions that have been underestimated by up to 55% (Oregon Global Warming Commission 2017, Law et al 2018). Washington includes combustion emissions from the current year's harvest (table 1; Manufacturing losses; row 9), but not from wood product decay, resulting in up to a 25% underestimation of state CO₂ emissions. Because California's emissions from other sectors are so high (76% of regional total), and harvest rates have been historically lower than in Oregon and Washington, the impact of not including these emissions is very small as a proportion of the total. Although fire in California has received much attention, it only accounts for 3% of the state's total fossil fuel CO₂ emissions.

These underestimates are especially alarming for Oregon where GHG reduction targets are to be 10% below 1990 levels by 2020 and at least 75% below 1990 levels by 2050 (Pietz and Gregor 2014). California and Washington emissions are to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020 (Nunez 2006), and 80% and 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (Washington State 2008), respectively.

In contrast, the US EPA reports emissions from wood product decay and landfills (EPA 2017) per the IPCC guidelines (IPCC 2006) (table S1). However, combustion emissions from logging and mill residues are not reported (EPA 2017). Moreover, ecosystem carbon losses are indirectly estimated through changes in biomass pools with measurement uncertainty that can be greater than the change (Ferster et al 2015). So even at the national level, emissions (as a fraction of fossil fuel emissions) would be underestimated by 10% and 24% in Washington and Oregon, respectively. Undoubtedly, there are implications for reduction mandates when the magnitude of emissions themselves are incorrect.

The goal for all societies and governments as stated in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Oppenheimer and Petsonk 2005) should be '...stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.' The Paris Climate Agreement (UNFCCC 2015) aims to keep global average temperature from rising by no more than 2 °C above preindustrial levels, and if possible no more than 1.5 °C. Forests are identified as part of the strategy (UNFCCC 2015).

Although some US states have attempted to quantify a portion of forest-related emissions, improved estimates are essential to track emissions to meet reduction goals. We identified the main components that should be part of the forest sector state estimates. We found that emissions have been underestimated by up to 55% in Oregon and 25% in Washington, and that at present, these emissions are not reported in state GHG reporting guidelines. The accuracy of forest sector emissions estimates can be improved with subregional data on residential and commercial building lifespans, recycling, verifiable substitution benefits and accurate monitoring of growth rates of forests. However, verifiable substitution of one material for another may be more readily quantified in the fossil fuel sector.

The 2006 IPCC GHG guidelines provide three different approaches for calculating emissions from harvested wood products (IPCC 2006) (including reporting 'zero') and reporting of this component is not required by UNFCCC. To complicate accounting further, several studies have shown that using the different recommended approaches results in emissions that differ by over 100% (Green et al 2006, Dias et al 2007). Moreover, according to IPCC and UNFCCC, emissions of CO₂ from forest bioenergy are to be counted under land use change and not counted in the energy sector to avoid double counting. However, this provides a 'loophole' leading to their not being counted at all.

The United States government currently requires all federal agencies to count forest bioenergy as carbon neutral because the EPA assumes replacement by future regrowth of forests somewhere that may take several decades or longer (EPA 2018). While it is theoretically possible that a replacement forest will grow and absorb a like amount of CO₂ to that emitted decades or a century before, there is no guarantee that this will happen, and the enforcement is transferred to future generations. In any rational economic analysis, a benefit in the distant future must be discounted against the immediate damage associated with emissions during combustion. Furthermore, the goal for climate protection is not climate neutrality, but rather reduction of net GHGs emissions to the atmosphere to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system. Allowing forests to reach their biological potential for growth and sequestration, maintaining large trees (Lutz et al 2018), reforesting recently cut lands, and afforestation of suitable areas will remove additional CO₂ from the atmosphere. Global vegetation stores of carbon are 50% of their potential including western forests because of harvest activities (Erb et al 2017). Clearly, western forests could do more to address climate change through carbon sequestration if allowed to grow longer.

Since it is now clear that both CO₂ emissions and removal rates are essential to meet temperature limitation goals and prevent irreversible climate change, each should be counted and reported. We recommend that international agreements and states utilize a consistent and transparent carbon LCA that explicitly accounts for all forest and wood product storage and emissions to determine compliance with goals to lower atmospheric GHGs. Only by using a full accounting of GHGs can the world manage its emissions of heat trapping gases to achieve concentrations in the atmosphere that will support a stable climate.

We calculated the 2001 to 2016 average net forestry sector emissions from cradle-to-grave, accounting for all carbon captured in biomass and released through decomposition by forest ecosystems and wood products industry in Washington, Oregon, and California. Building on our previous work (Harmon et al 1996, Hudiburg et al 2011, Law et al 2013, Law et al 2018), we developed a modified and expanded LCA method to combine with our ecosystem carbon balance, now called Forest-GHG (version 1.0; figure 1 and box 1). We accounted for all carbon removed from forests through fire and harvest. All harvested carbon was tracked until it either was returned to the atmosphere through wood product decomposition/combustion or decomposition in landfills, minus the amount semi-permanently stored in landfills (buried). This required calculating the carbon removed by harvest operations starting in 1900 to present day because a portion of the wood removed in the past century is still in-use or decomposing. In addition to carbon in biomass, we also accounted for all carbon emissions associated with harvest (equipment fuel, transportation, manufacturing inputs). Moreover, our wood product life-cycle assessment includes pathways for recycling and deposition in landfills. Finally, we give substitution credits for not using more fossil fuel intensive materials than wood used in construction of buildings and energy production.

Observed carbon stocks and fluxes (ecosystem carbon balance)

Off-site emissions associated with harvest (LCA)

Substitution

Uncertainty estimates and sensitivity analysis

This research was supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the US National Institute of Food and Agriculture Grant 2013-67003-20652 and the National Science Foundation award number DEB-1553049.