ForestOvershoot: Analysis and optimization of trade-offs between negative emissions and ecosystem services

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) by the forest sink and storage in wood products (hereafter ‘Forest CDR’) helps to create negative emissions in Germany and plays a crucial role in achieving climate neutrality, especially for the construction sector. However, forests also face climate impacts which have dramatically increased. This interaction of climate impacts on forests and their long-term mitigation potential is especially relevant in an overshooting context where low-cost Forest CDR is required later in the century to compensate for higher emissions earlier in the century that also are likely to come along with stronger extreme events affecting forests. Therefore, the aim of ForestOvershoot is to evaluate and quantify the potential for and timing of Forest CDR options in Germany under an overshoot scenario considering uncertainties due to climate change, forest disturbances and other forest management objectives. ForestOvershoot employs state-of-the-art forest and wood product modeling, life-cycle analysis of innovative timber buildings relying on data and expert knowledge to quantify the negative emissions generated by Forest CDR under a range of forest disturbance, management, protection, conversion and innovative-wood-use scenarios in an overshooting context. The forest models use harmonized input data and scenarios so that they can be compared and ensembles calculated. Moreover, trade-offs of Forest CDR with ecosystem services and biodiversity are simulated and quantified using multi-criteria optimization techniques. The multi-model Forest CDR projections will be post-processed to match the reporting standards of the official German national GHG reporting so that reporting agencies can include them in their national assessment reports. The project results are furthermore channeled into concrete policy recommendations for proactive planning and management of Forest CDR as well as scientific publications contributing to the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report.