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      Climate targets in European timber-producing countries conflict with goals on forest ecosystem services and biodiversity

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          Abstract

          The European Union (EU) set clear climate change mitigation targets to reach climate neutrality, accounting for forests and their woody biomass resources. We investigated the consequences of increased harvest demands resulting from EU climate targets. We analysed the impacts on national policy objectives for forest ecosystem services and biodiversity through empirical forest simulation and multi-objective optimization methods. We show that key European timber-producing countries – Finland, Sweden, Germany (Bavaria) – cannot fulfil the increased harvest demands linked to the ambitious 1.5°C target. Potentials for harvest increase only exists in the studied region Norway. However, focusing on EU climate targets conflicts with several national policies and causes adverse effects on multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity. We argue that the role of forests and their timber resources in achieving climate targets and societal decarbonization should not be overstated. Our study provides insight for other European countries challenged by conflicting policies and supports policymakers.

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          Most cited references74

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          Forest disturbances under climate change

          Forest disturbances are sensitive to climate. However, our understanding of disturbance dynamics in response to climatic changes remains incomplete, particularly regarding large-scale patterns, interaction effects and dampening feedbacks. Here we provide a global synthesis of climate change effects on important abiotic (fire, drought, wind, snow and ice) and biotic (insects and pathogens) disturbance agents. Warmer and drier conditions particularly facilitate fire, drought and insect disturbances, while warmer and wetter conditions increase disturbances from wind and pathogens. Widespread interactions between agents are likely to amplify disturbances, while indirect climate effects such as vegetation changes can dampen long-term disturbance sensitivities to climate. Future changes in disturbance are likely to be most pronounced in coniferous forests and the boreal biome. We conclude that both ecosystems and society should be prepared for an increasingly disturbed future of forests.
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            Robust Optimization

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              Climate change may cause severe loss in the economic value of European forest land

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                Journal
                Communications Earth & Environment
                Commun Earth Environ
                Springer Science and Business Media LLC
                2662-4435
                December 2023
                April 14 2023
                : 4
                : 1
                Article
                10.1038/s43247-023-00771-z
                6c726d80-7c1c-4417-b71b-b27cff321298
                © 2023

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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