Research on the future of forestry: A sample of EU

Abstract

After the industrial revolution, technological developments, unbalanced population growth and excessive consumption have become threatening to the earth. Parallel to the world population, the increasing energy consumption is also increasing rapidly. Increasing energy consumption increases CO2 emissions more and more every day. Considering the temperature increase caused by greenhouse gases, global climate change has become an important problem that concerns the whole world today. Climate change will affect forest resources and the continuity of ecosystem services more in the future. It is necessary to protect forests, which are beneficial in preventing global climate change, and to prevent deforestation. In this study, using the data between 2001 and 2020, data on carbon emissions, per capita national income, annual population growth rate, forest area, exports and imports of European Union countries were used. The data used in the study were obtained from the world bank data, food and agriculture data, and cover the 2001-2020 periods. In the study, the stationarity of the data sets of the variables was tested with the Dickey-Fuller unit root test (ADF). With the help of the model created, predictions for the forests’ future were made by using the variables used in the model for the years 2021-2040. The values obtained were compared with the values of the previous years. When the current data and the estimated values are compared, the population growth rate in EU countries is quite low and sometimes it takes negative values. It has been determined that the CO2 emission and forest area variables of EU countries are close to each other. It is seen that the forest existence of EU countries has increased and CO2 emission has decreased.