Global carbon storage in harvested wood products: a forest sector model inter-comparison

Abstract Forests can contribute to climate mitigation through the use of harvested wood products (HWPs), which provide a significant long-term source of carbon sequestration, replacement of more emissions-intensive building materials, and the integration of forest biomass into bioenergy systems. However, knowledge gaps remain regarding the interplay between HWP carbon flows, traditional forest product market developments, and climate policy developments incentivizing bioenergy and carbon sequestration in forestry at global scales. Information on the extent to which future policy and market developments can impact global carbon fluxes in wood product pools is needed for guiding policy design and quantifying longer-term tradeoffs between carbon stock preservation in forests and increased carbon sequestration in wood products. This study builds on projections from a forest model inter-comparison analysis of three global forest sector models to estimate the potential carbon pool in HWPs across various socioeconomic scenarios and levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) policy ambition. Further, we assess the extent to which the use of bioenergy, paired with carbon capture and storage, can enhance this forest carbon sink. In scenarios with higher levels of global timber production, even in scenarios with fossil-fueled economic growth, we see an increase in carbon stored in wood products used for housing materials, lumber, pulp, and paper products. However, climate policy stringency reduces the HWP sink, shifting C sequestration to forests and allocating harvests to bioenergy systems. The use of carbon capture and storage substantially increases the global HWP carbon sink. The results of this study highlight how economic and policy factors could impact the role of global forests in climate mitigation through carbon storage in long-lived wood products and bioenergy carbon capture and storage pools, providing new insight to policy-makers, forest managers, and forest product manufacturers on viable pathways to support the co-production of timber and carbon sinks.