Projections of emissions and removals from the LULUCF sector to 2050. Contract report for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

The UK is required to report projections of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) activities for carbon budgets under the UK Climate Change Act, for the European Union Monitoring Mechanism and the UK Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UK now requires projections of emissions/removals to 2050 (the target date for 80% emissions reductions below the 1990 baseline in the UK Climate Change Act). Such an undertaking is more complex and cannot use the simple trend extrapolation of the 2020 projection methodology. Land use policies and aspirations (e.g. achieving a certain percentage of forest cover by 2050) need to be taken into consideration. Projected land use change also needs to be internally consistent, i.e. the increased area of one land use type will be matched by the reduced area of another. Projections to 2050 have been made for carbon stock changes (resulting in net CO2 emissions) and CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions arising from LULUCF activities reported in the latest (1990-2009) greenhouse gas inventory. Three scenarios (High emissions, Mid emissions and Low emissions) have been constructed. Separate projections have been developed for each country (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and combined into a total for the UK. The assumptions underlying the projections were developed by a group of representatives from DECC, Defra, CEH and the Devolved Administration governments (see Annex 1).