Obligații asumate și contribuția sectorului forestier la îndeplinirea țintelor de reducerea emisiilor de gaze cu efect de seră ale României

Romania has made commitments to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which also refers to land use, including forestland. Essentially, the commitments refer to the fact that the land use sector is not a net emissions source in the 2013-2020 commitment period associated with the Kyoto Protocol and between 2021-2030 associated with the Paris Agreement and implemented by EU legislation. Forest management (which also integrates the use of harvested wood products), deforestation, afforestation and revegetation are the most significant contributors to this sector. The annual amount of CO2 absorbed by the forestland,is estimated at about 20-22 million tons, both from Romania’s official reporting based on data of the Forest Fund Inventory form 1984 rolled over more than three decades, and the simulation based on preliminary results from the first cycle of the National Forestry Inventory, with 2010 as the reference year. Although numerically similar, they are structurally heterogeneous, coming from very different values of the parameters used, especially annual net growth and harvest volume. For responsible authorities, this creates a major uncertainty both in meeting current reporting obligations and design of GHG reduction effort. According to current estimates, accounting for forest management suggests a net quantity of emission reductions of approx. 9 million tCO2/year for the period 2013-2020 (possible “windfall” credits in the absence of documented mitigation measures) and a net emission of approx. 0.1 million tCO2/year for the period 2021-2030. Another source of uncertainty is GHG emission from deforestation (e.g., anthropogenic conversion from forest to other land use) that have taken place since 1990, possibly artifact caused by missing a robust method of estimating of the deforested areas as required by reporting rules. The afforestation amounts to only 0.19 million tCO2 in 2017, but the flexibility quota provided for in the new regulations (EU) 841/2018 and (EU) 842/2018 would allow an increase corresponding to an annual afforestation rate up to 12 times the,average area achieved over the last 20 years. Revegetation (i.e. creation of forest protection belts) was a source of GHG emissions in the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol because of the low rate of establishment of new forest belts. Legislative support contains multiple incentives for GHG emission reductions for sectoral activities. Specifically, commitments also include agricultural land use, so it remains up to the national authorities responsible to find integrated, cross-sectoral implementation solutions, as well as identifying opportunities specific to forestry sector.