INTEGRATED FORESTRY AND BIOFUEL: LAND AND LABOUR ALLOCATIONS GLOBAL MODELING AND EUROPEAN PROSPECTS

Abstract

The ECLAM (Energy Carbon Land Allocations Model) is used to simulate the potential of forestry and bio-fuels (fuels derived from biological raw material) in climate change response. The intuition for this approach is that, in the short and medium term, there is little flexibility in the energy supply system owing to the long lifetime of typical energy sector fixed assets, whereas there is substantial flexibility in the allocation of land at least until global population growth leads to greater demands for land, for food and fibre production. Furthermore, the utilisation of land for energy production and for a medium term ‘buffer stock’ of carbon results in a flow of rents to landowners which can provide the capital needed for the more intensive agriculture that will be needed in the next century. The carbon flows related to absorption by forestry and biofuel production, and to emissions from burning fuel, together with the effects of natural absorption, combine to yield a time profile for atmospheric carbon. Simulations run on a global scale demonstrate the medium term use of plantation forestry as a buffer stock of carbon, for eventual use partly as fibre, and partly as fuel. Results are shown for the variables associated with the scenario like rent of land, productivity of agriculture and effects on the labour market. An important decrease of atmospheric CO 2 is diagnosed to be possible by the described integrated ‘biofuels and sequestration strategy 1 .