The European Parliament adopted by 532 votes to 44, with 20 abstentions, amendments to the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the taking into account of greenhouse gas emissions and removals resulting from the ' land use and forestry in the context of the Climate and Energy Action for 2030 and amending Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a mechanism for the monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and for the reporting of further information related to climate change.
The matter was referred back to the committee responsible for interinstitutional negotiations.
The main amendments adopted in plenary deal with the following points:
Potential of the LULUCF: the proposal aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase removals from forests in order to combat climate change. Parliament highlighted the considerable potential of land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector to contribute to the achievement of long-term climate the Union and at international level. It stressed that the LULUCF accounting system needed to be robust, suggesting that removals by the sector should be treated as a separate pillar in EU climate policy.
Commitments: Members proposed that Member States increase their CO2 removals so that they exceed their emissions from 2030.
The Commission shall propose a framework for targets after 2030 which includes such increased removals, in line with the Union’s long-term climate objectives and the commitments made under the Paris Agreement.
During the period from 2021 to 2025, a Member State may choose to include managed wetland. It shall notify that choice to the Commission by 31 December 2020. During this period, Member States that have not chosen to include managed wetland in the scope of their commitments shall nevertheless report the emissions and removals from managed wetland to the Commission.
Flexibility: the proposal states that, depending on national preferences, Member States should be able to choose adequate national policies for achieving their commitments in LULUCF, including the possibility of compensating emissions from one land category by removals from another land category.
Parliament stated that Members States should be able to use up to 280 million tonnes of total net removals resulting from the combined accounting categories of deforested land, afforested land, managed cropland, managed grassland, managed wetland where applicable, and, subject to the delegated act adopted pursuant to the Regulation on binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States from 2021 to 2030.
Other land-use categories: proposals indicate that land that is converted to another land use category should be considered in transition to that category for the default value of 20 years in the IPCC Guidelines. Parliament considered that Member States should only derogate from that default value only for afforested land and only in very limited circumstances justified under the IPCC Guidelines.
Forest land accounts: Parliament proposed to change the cap for forest management credits from 3.5 % of Member States emissions to 7 %, with the aim of encouraging Member States to increase the absorption of CO2 by dead wood.
Parliament also proposed to change the reference period for the forest accounting plan from 1990-2009 to 2000-2012. It also called for a team of experts comprising representatives of the Commission and the Member States, in consultation with the Standing Forestry Committee and the civil society dialogue group on national forest accounting plans.
The Commission shall adopt delegated acts to amend Annex II to the Regulation in the light of the review and the assessment carried out by the expert review team. Until the entry into force of the delegated acts, Member State forest reference levels as specified in Annex II shall continue to apply for the period 2021-2025 and/or 2026-2030.
The Commission shall also adopt delegated acts to update the categories of harvested wood products (paper, wood panels, sawn timber) with integrating additional carbon-sequestration products on the basis of the IPCC Guidelines.
Report: the Commission shall report in 2027 and 2032 on the cumulative balance of emissions and removals from managed forest land in the Union in reference to average emissions and removals during the period 1990-2009.
If the cumulative balance is negative, the Commission shall present a proposal to compensate and remove the corresponding amount of emission allowances from Member States under the European Parliament and Council regulation on binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States from 2021 to 2030.