The Land-Use Consequences of Woody Biomass with More Stringent Climate Mitigation Scenarios

Integrated assessment models increasingly rely on biomass for energy with ever more stringent mitigation policies. The stringency of mitigation will therefore have large effects on land use. As discussed in the literature, crop bio-energy will lead to substantial pressure to increase deforestation. This paper consequently explores using woody biomass for bioenergy. The paper combines the IAM WITCH with a global dynamic forestry model GTM to determine the optimal size of the woody biomass market, the effects on the timber market, and the resulting forestland under two alternative mitigation strategies. This paper predicts that moving from a moderate to a stringent mitigation policy would increase the demand for woody biomass from 3.7 to 5.2 billion m/yr, increasing forestland by 1049 to 1890 million ha, and shrinking farmland by 748 to 1550 million ha. The stringency of mitigation will therefore have large effects on land use.