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Jani Laturi (email), Jarmo Mikkola, Jussi Uusivuori

Carbon reservoirs in wood products-in-use in Finland: current sinks and scenarios until 2050

Laturi J., Mikkola J., Uusivuori J. (2008). Carbon reservoirs in wood products-in-use in Finland: current sinks and scenarios until 2050. Silva Fennica vol. 42 no. 2 article id 259. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.259

Abstract

This study addresses the question of how much carbon will be sequestered in wood products during the coming decades in Finland. Using sawnwood and other wood material consumption data since the 1950s and inventory data of carbon reservoirs of wood products in the Finnish construction and civil engineering sector, we first derive estimates for the carbon reservoirs in wood products-in-use in that sector. We then extend the estimate to include all wood products-in-use. We find that the carbon pool of wood products in the Finnish construction and civil engineering sector grew by about 12% since an inventory for 2000, and that the overall estimate for carbon reservoirs of Finnish wood products in 2004 was 26.6 million tons of carbon. In building the scenarios until 2050, econometric time series models accounting for the relationship between wood material consumption and the development of GDP were used. The results indicate that the range of carbon reservoirs of wood products in Finland will be 39.6–64.2 million tons of carbon in the year 2050. The impacts of different forms of the decay function on the time-path of a carbon sink and its value in wood products were also studied. When a logistic decay pattern is used, the discounted value of the predicted carbon sink of wood products in Finland is between EUR850 and EUR1380 million – at the price level of EUR15/CO2 ton – as opposed to 440–900 million euros, if a geometric decay pattern is used.

Keywords
climate change; wood products; carbon pool; present value; decay function

Author Info
  • Laturi, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, P.O. Box 18, FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland E-mail jani.laturi@metla.fi (email)
  • Mikkola, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, P.O. Box 18, FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland E-mail jm@nn.fi
  • Uusivuori, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, P.O. Box 18, FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland E-mail ju@nn.fi

Received 7 September 2007 Accepted 25 January 2008 Published 31 December 2008

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Available at https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.259 | Download PDF

Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 4.0

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Laturi J., Mikkola J. et al. (2008) Carbon reservoirs in wood products-in-use in Fin.. Silva Fennica vol. 42 no. 2 article id 259