TY - BOOK
T1 - Greenhouse gas impacts of harvested wood products
T2 - Evaluation and development of methods
AU - Pingoud, Kim
AU - Perälä, Anna-Leena
AU - Soimakallio, Sampo
AU - Pussinen, Ari
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of wood and paper products,
in the following referred as harvested wood products
(HWP), is twofold: 1) HWP form a renewable pool of
wood-based carbon, whose changes act as carbon sink or
source, 2) manufacture and whole lifecycle of HWP cause
fossil carbon emissions. These fossil emissions are often
smaller than those of rival products from nonrenewable
sources, and thus material and energy substitution by HWP
can cause a relative decrease in GHG emissions. This
report considers both above components, but it focuses on
impact 1) and specifically on the approaches and methods
for estimating the balance of wood-based carbon in HWP.
In estimation and reporting GHG emissions under the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), countries do in principle report all their
fossil carbon emissions (including those of HWP
lifecycle), whereas reporting principles of carbon
balance in HWP, impact 1), is still open. At present only
changes in forest biomass are reported whereas HWP stock
is not assumed to change. Climate political debate has
raised alternative and competing accounting approaches,
which in totally different way allocate HWP emissions or
removals between countries. The report discusses and
compares the alternative approaches and provides
numerical examples illustrating the position of various
countries in above emissions allocation. After inclusion
of HWP reporting under the UNFCCC, the next possible step
could be to include HWP accounting in the commitments of
the Kyoto Protocol. In this case, substantial barriers
for international trade of HWP and use of renewable
bioenergy might be formed, dependent on the choice of the
HWP accounting approach.
In this study a dynamic spreadsheet model of carbon
balance in HWP was developed, which countries could use
in their national emissions estimation and reporting
under the UNFCCC. The model requires as basic input data
the production and international trade rates of HWP,
provided worldwide and since 1961 by the FAO database,
which is easily accessible through the internet. The
report presents a short description of the above model.
In addition, a more robust method for estimation of
national HWP stocks is presented, based on direct
inventory of building stock. However, this method is not
applicable in national reporting globally, basically due
to lack of relevant statistics in most countries. The GHG
impacts of type 2) are also shortly illustrated by
Finnish case studies, two of which consider material
substitution in Finnish new construction.
AB - Greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of wood and paper products,
in the following referred as harvested wood products
(HWP), is twofold: 1) HWP form a renewable pool of
wood-based carbon, whose changes act as carbon sink or
source, 2) manufacture and whole lifecycle of HWP cause
fossil carbon emissions. These fossil emissions are often
smaller than those of rival products from nonrenewable
sources, and thus material and energy substitution by HWP
can cause a relative decrease in GHG emissions. This
report considers both above components, but it focuses on
impact 1) and specifically on the approaches and methods
for estimating the balance of wood-based carbon in HWP.
In estimation and reporting GHG emissions under the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), countries do in principle report all their
fossil carbon emissions (including those of HWP
lifecycle), whereas reporting principles of carbon
balance in HWP, impact 1), is still open. At present only
changes in forest biomass are reported whereas HWP stock
is not assumed to change. Climate political debate has
raised alternative and competing accounting approaches,
which in totally different way allocate HWP emissions or
removals between countries. The report discusses and
compares the alternative approaches and provides
numerical examples illustrating the position of various
countries in above emissions allocation. After inclusion
of HWP reporting under the UNFCCC, the next possible step
could be to include HWP accounting in the commitments of
the Kyoto Protocol. In this case, substantial barriers
for international trade of HWP and use of renewable
bioenergy might be formed, dependent on the choice of the
HWP accounting approach.
In this study a dynamic spreadsheet model of carbon
balance in HWP was developed, which countries could use
in their national emissions estimation and reporting
under the UNFCCC. The model requires as basic input data
the production and international trade rates of HWP,
provided worldwide and since 1961 by the FAO database,
which is easily accessible through the internet. The
report presents a short description of the above model.
In addition, a more robust method for estimation of
national HWP stocks is presented, based on direct
inventory of building stock. However, this method is not
applicable in national reporting globally, basically due
to lack of relevant statistics in most countries. The GHG
impacts of type 2) are also shortly illustrated by
Finnish case studies, two of which consider material
substitution in Finnish new construction.
KW - greenhouse gases
KW - emissions
KW - environmental impacts
KW - carbon balance
KW - wood products
KW - Kyoto Protocol
KW - UNFCCC
KW - IPCC
KW - dynamic models
M3 - Report
SN - 951-38-6188-0
T3 - VTT Tiedotteita - Meddelanden - Research Notes
BT - Greenhouse gas impacts of harvested wood products
PB - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
CY - Espoo
ER -