TITLE:
The Land-Use Consequences of Woody Biomass with More Stringent Climate Mitigation Scenarios
AUTHORS:
Alice Favero, Robert Mendelsohn
KEYWORDS:
Climate Change, Forestry, BECCS, Land Use, Integrated Assessment Model
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.8 No.1,
January
24,
2017
ABSTRACT: Integrated
assessment models increasingly rely on biomass for energy with ever more
stringent mitigation policies. The stringency of mitigation will therefore have
large effects on land use. As discussed in the literature, crop bio-energy will
lead to substantial pressure to increase deforestation. This paper consequently
explores using woody biomass for bioenergy. The paper combines the IAM WITCH
with a global dynamic forestry model GTM to determine
the optimal size of the woody biomass market, the effects on the timber market,
and the resulting forestland under two alternative mitigation strategies. This paper predicts that moving from a moderate to a
stringent mitigation policy would increase the demand for woody biomass from 3.7 to 5.2 billion m3/yr, increasing
forestland by 1049 to 1890 million ha, and shrinking farmland by 748 to 1550
million ha. The stringency of mitigation will therefore have large effects on
land use.