1. Outline
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) commissioned CEH to model the impact of these new scenarios on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, carbon sequestration, and harvested material. Land can remove and store CO2 from the atmosphere, which makes it unique among all sectors. However, the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector is currently a net source of GHG emissions when including all sources of peatland emissions.
For the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget advice, we have updated the assumptions for reducing emissions in the LULUCF sector that was used to inform our Net Zero advice in 2019, and incorporated new assumptions. These were used to develop five new scenarios, which have allowed us to consider alternative pathways for reducing emissions to 2035 and 2050. All scenarios include afforestation, agro-forestry (and hedgerows), bioenergy crops, peatland restoration and sustainable peat management; with the deployment rate, timing and ambition of each measure varied per scenario.
2. Key findings
- All five scenarios reduce sectoral emissions, and net zero emissions is reached between 2033 and 2040 depending on the scenario. By 2050, the sector’s net emissions sink reaches between 12 to 38 MtCO2e by 2050.
Topics
