Because the European Commission wants to plant three billion trees
Enrico Martial's article
On July 14, in Brussels, at the press conference to present the Green Deal climate package, or "Fit for-55", a journalist asked: "but where do we plant three billion trees?" This, in fact, is one of the objectives of the forest-soil action, which is included in the vast package of directives and regulations approved by the Commission that same day, 14 July 2021.
Three billion trees are a lot, more than six per European citizen, and they are in fact the most striking subject of the action, which includes other measures dedicated to land use and forestry. Overall, the Fit-for-55 for soil and forests constitutes an increase in the objectives already established and already in implementation, starting from regulation 841/2018, called LULUCF ( Land-use, land-use change and forestry ) , the same acronym of the protocol entered in the Kyoto agreement of 1997, relaunched by the Paris Agreement of 2015. On a global scale, the agricultural sector contributes directly to about 26% of emissions.
Basically, the Member States were already bound to the “no-debt” criterion, that is to always compensate in the soil-forest sector the emissions generated in agriculture, for example those from livestock, about half of the total. The proposed regulation of Fit-for-55 of these days is also a correction of course: the European Court of Auditors found in a report of 21 June 2021 that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) continues to support practices contrary to environmental objectives , for example by financing drained peatlands, which occupy less than 2% of agricultural land but generate 20% of the sector's emissions. Compensation is therefore a necessity.
In the background, there is a debate, even a heavy one, on the climate neutrality of biomasses. On the one hand, it is said that the CO2 debt exists the same and there is no neutrality, because the tree that I cut today to burn it takes years to grow back. On the other hand, there is always the argument of the "worst energy sources", such as coal, which makes one think about the "less-worst", with which parallel arguments for nuclear or gas are supported. Thus, the Commission, also with respect to a significant market and highly aligned countries (such as Sweden, for example), introduces specific measures into the regulation, such as the obligation not to use the trunks of cut trees as biomass, but their tips, the branches, all the waste from processing, sawdust, or twigs from agricultural activity. This is about 20% of the cut tree, the trunk of which can be used for construction. Protecting the trunk is also a way to reduce the pressure on the woods which cannot be thought of as deposits of fuel sources. Controversies flourished in the preparatory phase, on the impacts for energy companies, or in the European Parliament on possible job losses in rural areas. In Italy today biomass is worth 17% of renewable sources, with 3.5 million tons of materials used.
Equilibrium is perhaps achieved in the future by increasing the supply, with new trees. They would offer more material for bioenergy, but above all they would (as you learn about photosynthesis at school) from gigantic absorbents, from “CO2 sinks”. We would go from the sequestration of 263 million to 310 million tons of CO2 by 2030. On the rest, there would be more obligations for States to mitigate emissions from land and livestock production, to better monitor with digital and big data every tree, to align biodiversity and bioenergy policies, to firmly protect “patrimonial” forests, to set climate neutrality in the soil-forest sector for 2035.
For the implementation and as a preparatory phase, until 2026 there would be no drastic changes, with modest effects on the economic systems of the sector and on rural areas, except precisely on the monitoring or the new plants or the further safety of the forest areas already protected. From 2026 to 2030 there will be stringent measures on emissions, including other than CO2, and relating to livestock. A measured operation with its limits, but necessary to circumvent and prepare the sector by collaborating and without facing it head on.
As for the three billion new trees, the European Commission tried to explain itself with a working document , a summary sheet and a calendar . There will be no replacement of existing trees, but afforestation in the right spaces (not in areas of environmental protection for example), with the correct trees (for history, biodiversity, etc.), in direct partnership with the States and local authorities, with the involvement of citizens, who will be able to follow the evolution and promote it (Map-My-Tree, since there are six plants each). The tool is always of soft power, with financial incentives, motivational tools and the removal of non-economic obstacles.
It begins in the first quarter of 2022 with the Guidelines for planting them, an online system for monitoring and accounting for every existing tree (thanks to digital), for the first new plants along the infrastructures, peri-urban roads, in cities (also to mitigate temperatures), in private spaces, in uncultivated lands (4.8 million hectares in 2030) etc. taking into account maintenance costs, water needs, soil protection, etc.
As a comment, in the midst of technical complications and regulations, this idea of planting all these trees finally reminds us of Sardinia: in the context of the eighteenth-nineteenth century industrialization, it suffered drastic cuts and a strong reduction of its forests. Without prejudice to the thousands of environmental and silvicultural problems, the theme and the resources that will accompany it could today arouse some interest on the island, as in other areas of the country.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/perche-la-commissione-europea-vuol-piantare-tre-miliardi-di-alberi/ on Sun, 25 Jul 2021 06:01:28 +0000.