BIOCLIMA European Commission Report

The EU’s Ready for 55 package and the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 highlight the role that the agriculture and forestry sectors will play in combating climate change, protecting the environment and preserving or restoring biodiversity. On August 13, 2024. The Directorate General for Economic Affairs. European Commission Environment Directorate-General has published a technical report called BIOCLIMA: Assessing the European Union’s Biodiversity and Climate Strategy.

It provides an overview and assessment of EU land use policies for a variety of purposes, from forestry and food production, to climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, to assessing its impact on biodiversity (e.g., species conservation status and the extent and condition of ecosystems), resources and carbon flows. It describes scenarios that address land use policies and actions for biodiversity conservation and emission reductions in the context of estimating their impact on various European Green Deal goals. The report is available on the European Commission’s website.

BIOCLIMA Report

Published on August 13, 2024. The report includes answers to questions:

• What is the impact of planned land use on biodiversity under the reference scenario (i.e., in the absence of Ready for 55 and the EU Biodiversity Strategy), and how measures to achieve climate targets for LULUCF sectors will affect biodiversity compared to the reference scenario.
• What would be the contribution of the alternative to climate change mitigation?
• What is the combined impact of climate policy and biodiversity on land use change and related emissions?
• Which combinations of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation measures have positive additive effects, and which have opposite effects on land use and greenhouse gas emissions?
• What is the combined impact of climate and biodiversity policies?
• Which combinations of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation measures have positive additive effects, and which have the opposite effect on biodiversity?
• What are the most important data and model gaps that need to be addressed? Are they aimed at improving the assessment of carbon stocks and the impact of land use policies on biodiversity?

The report is the result of the work commissioned by the Directorate General of Economic Affairs. The European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General.

Scenarios within the BIOCLIMA report

The report describes four different sets of scenarios that reflect land use policies for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. These include:

• Reference scenario;
• Climate policy scenarios:
  • Low biomass demand scenario;
  • High Biomass Demand Scenario;
  • Low biomass scenario with LULUCF policy;
• Biodiversity policy scenarios;
• Integrated policy scenarios.

The BIOCLIMA reference scenario is based directly on the European Union’s official 2020 reference scenario, which was used to model EU energy and climate policies. The biodiversity policy scenarios simulate the potential implementation of nature restoration legislation, as well as the protection of all old-growth forests and woodlands.

Some answers to the questions asked

The report indicates that in the absence of any climate or biodiversity policies, macroeconomic, demographic and technological drivers of change could continue to put pressure on species’ habitats, which could result in declines in species’ numbers by mid-century. The results of the scenarios suggest protection of all existing old-growth and primary forests, as well as those that are close to being considered old-growth, combined with management of natural forests with extended rotation times (for example, 60 to 80 years in Mediterranean, temperate or birch forests, and 90 to 110 years in boreal forests), suggest a trade-off between maintaining productive forests, restoring carbon emissions by mid-21st century, and maintaining sufficient habitat for forest species.

In the long term (up to 2050), net mitigation benefits will be moderate and driven by increased conservation and restoration efforts through reduced greenhouse gas emissions from forest management.

These changes in forest management practices are expected to affect the forest carbon cycle in different ways, depending on the initial trajectory of management processes and local climate and soil conditions.

The report indicates that a carbon price can create a financial incentive to reduce deforestation and reduce intensification of cropland and grassland management in order to reduce emissions from LULUCF. The report’s authors point out that this will create a potential synergy between climate and biodiversity policies. In addition, systemically projected declines in intensively managed cropland could have some benefits if associated with a reduction in management intensity, such as through restoration activities.

Gaps in data and models

The report points out that when it comes to biodiversity indicators, the effects of climate change (both in the form of extreme events such as wildfires and changes in the range of species) are not currently included in the models, meaning that observed phenomena are bound to be underestimated. It is also pointed out that a key data gap is the lack of information on the effects of reducing fertilizer and pesticide use on crop yields and the transition from conventional to organic agriculture.

The authors of the report point out that during the BIOCLIMA project, Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plans were developed, which are proposed to be taken into account in the future development of new scenarios that integrate CAP and Farm-to-Table strategy goals.