A comment to "Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral": Important insights beyond greenhouse gas accounting

In their recent editorial, Schulze and colleagues (Schulze et al., 2012) discuss the implications of a large-scale increase in the harvest of forest biomass to provide 20% of the current global primary energy supply. They present several well-founded concerns regarding the economic and ecological sustainability of such a scenario, concerns we largely share. However, the authors express particular apprehension regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) consequences of expanded forest bioenergy production that we do not entirely share. GHGs – while important – should not be the sole evaluation criterion when the objective is climate protection. The peer reviewed literature provides important insights beyond that presented which warrants additional commentary in order to give a more holistic and balanced perspective on the subject of forest bioenergy and climate.

In particular, the authors overlook two attributes fundamental to forest based bioenergy that distinguish it from fossil-fuel energy: (1) forests can affect climate in many ways extending beyond the biosphere-atmosphere cycling of carbon, and sometimes in ways that are in direct opposition to the carbon cycle, (2) CO2 emissions from bioenergy sourced from a sustainably managed forest generates less warming than the same mass of CO2 from fossil fuels.

These attributes can have positive implications for the inclusion of forest based bioenergy as part of an integrated climate mitigation strategy.