Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) is defined internationally as one of the sectors for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory.
The Estonian Environment Agency (EstEA ) organizes the compilation, analysis, and reporting of annual inventory data for the LULUCF sector. GHG inventory estimates are provided from 1990 up to two years before the reporting year (X–2). EstEA also compiles overviews of measures to reduce GHG emissions in the LULUCF sector, policy directions, and GHG projections.
The LULUCF sector covers six land use categories: forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, settlements, and other land. Annual changes in carbon stocks are reported for each category in the following carbon pools: living biomass, dead organic matter (dead wood and litter), and soils (mineral and organic soils). Estimates are also provided for harvested wood products (HWP) under subcategories sawn wood, wood panels, bleached semi-chemical wood pulp, and paper and paperboard. Additionally, accounting includes N₂O and CH₄ emissions due to drainage of organic soils, wildfires, and nitrogen mineralization and leaching in soils.
Only anthropogenic GHG emissions and removals are assessed in the LULUCF sector. For example, emissions and removals from natural mires are excluded from the reporting. The LULUCF sector sink is mainly affected by the age structure of forests, management practices in forestry and agriculture, area of drained organic soils, production of horticultural peat, and C sequestration in HWP.
The LULUCF sector overview of the GHG inventory and information on policies, measures, and projections can be found here (in Estonian).
The LULUCF Regulation (EU) 2018/841 sets the contribution of the land sector to achieving EU climate targets. State commitments are implemented in two distinct periods: 2021–2025 and 2026–2030. In the period of 2021 to 2025, each Member State needs to comply with the ‘no-debit’ rule. That means they need to ensure that within their LULUCF sector, accounted emissions do not exceed accounted removals. In this regard, it is not assessed whether zero balance (emissions and removals are equal) has been achieved for the LULUCF accounting categories, but rather certain accounting categories are compared to reference levels or baseline net emissions. For managed forest land, this is the forest reference level (FRL); for managed cropland and managed grassland, the baseline period is 2005–2009; for afforested and deforested land, total emissions and removals are accounted. Accounting for the managed wetlands category during the 2021–2025 period is voluntary, and Estonia did not choose this obligation.
According to the the LULUCF Regulation, Member States prepared a National Forestry Accounting Plan for the years 2021–2025, which also determined the FRL. The FRL is based on the continuation of documented sustainable forest management practices during the 2000–2009 period. The FRL is necessary to assess GHG emissions and removals in the managed forest land category. Estonia’s forest reference level for 2021–2025, including the harvested wood products category, is -1,750 kt CO₂ equivalent annually (a total of -8,750 kt CO₂ equivalent over five years). This is the sequestration level to be achieved on average during the 2021–2025 period in the managed forest land and harvested wood products category to ensure compliance with the no-debit rule. Member States have the right to apply methodological adjustments to the FRL if the methodology used has been changed, and these adjustments are verified by review teams. Generally, the updating of methodologies does not significantly alter the complexity of achieving the LULUCF Regulation objectives, as earlier time series change in the same direction and magnitude. This applies to both the FRL and the 2030 target. If Estonia does not achieve the FRL level set for the managed forest land category, certain conditions allow the use of the managed forest land flexibility mechanism, which provides Estonia with 4,900 kt CO₂ equivalent.
The Estonian national target for the LULUCF sector in 2030 is to increase sequestration or reduce emissions by 434 kt CO₂ equivalent compared to the average of baseline period (2016–2018). Additionally, Member States will be assigned annual emission limits and budget for the 2026–2029 period. During the second commitment period, flexibility mechanisms and additional compensations can be used under certain conditions. Their use depends mainly on whether the EU meets its overall target of achieving net sequestration of 310 million tons of CO₂ equivalent in the LULUCF sector by 2030.
The assessment of compliance with LULUCF targets will take place after the accounting periods, in 2027 and 2032.
In 2021, the Estonian Environment Agency, in cooperation with the Estonian University of Life Sciences, completed a study on the sequestration potential of the LULUCF sector. It comprehensively analyzes the sector's GHG sequestration potential and scope for meeting the 2030 and 2050 climate policy objectives while considering the longer-term perspective (up to 2100). To illustrate the impact on achieving the LULUCF targets, the analysis describes a package of additional measures based on a uniform felling scenario.
The analysis of LULUCF sequestration capacity can be found here (in Estonian).