Europe’s green lung is weakening and its climate goals are faltering

The ability of European forests and lands to absorb carbon is weakening, compromising the continent’s climate commitments. This is what the European Environment Agency warns in a new report, which points out that, despite the setback, the sector can still play a key role in the fight against climate change if effective and coherent policies are implemented. The capacity of European terrestrial ecosystems to absorb carbon has fallen worryingly in the last decade. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its latest report “Enhancing Europe’s land carbon sink: status and prospects”, the carbon sink represented by land use and forestry (known as LULUCF) is in decline, which calls into question the fulfilment of the climate neutrality targets set by the EU for 2050. In 2023, the LULUCF sector acted as a net sink for 198 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, offsetting approximately 6% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, this capacity has fallen by an average of 30% per year between 2014 and 2023 compared to the previous decade. The causes are diverse, but interrelated: the maturity of forest stands, increased logging (for economic and political reasons), and the increasingly evident impact of climate change – with more intense and frequent forest fires, droughts and pests – have weakened the carbon-regulating role played by forests.

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