What is the European Union's pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?

LULUCF

The EU's LULUCF Sector

The EU’s LULUCF sector acted as a net carbon sink between 2010 and 2022, absorbing more CO2 than it emits. However, the EU’s sink has been in steady decline since about 2010. Aging forests, higher harvests and climate driven disturbances means less and less CO2 is absorbed every year. Net removals shrank by about 30% between 2012 and 2022. In 2022, the LULUCF sector sequestered 236 MtCO2e primarily in forests and emitted 94 MtCO2e largely from with croplands, grasslands, wetlands and deforestation driven by settlement expansion.1

The EU’s LULUCF sink is increasingly at risk from the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED III),2 whose technology-neutral approach to decarbonising other sectors has fuelled a growing reliance on biofuels. By relying on a technology-neutral approach rather than setting clear mandates for non-biological renewables such as battery-electric vehicles, the Directive is driving surging demand for both conventional and advanced biofuels, with potential consequences for land use and carbon sinks.3 RED III sets an economy-wide renewable energy target of 42.5% by 2030, allowing both biomass and conventional renewables to count towards this goal. In transport, Member States must achieve a 29% renewable share in final energy consumption, including a 4.5% binding target for advanced biofuels derived from non-food feedstocks. This design implies that the remaining share will largely be met through crop-based biofuels, heightening risks of negative land-use impacts.

The Nature Restoration Law (2024/1991) supports the preservation and growth of land sinks in Europe and abroad, through measures and targets to restore terrestrial ecosystems targeting at least 20% of land by 2030.4 The Deforestation Law (2023/1115)5 requires businesses exporting to the EU market to prove that their products are not sourced from deforested or degraded land in the country of origin. However, there has been much opposition from trade partner countries like Brazil, Indonesia and the US, and consequently in 2025 EU has postponed the implementation of the Deforestation Law for a second year in a row.6

In 2025, the EU released its 2040 target proposal, which does not include any LULUCF target for 2040. It only stipulates that removals, both natural sinks and technological, should be enhanced and increased.7

the European Union's LULUCF emissions

MtCO₂ / year

  • Graph description

    Historical CO2 emissions 1990-2020 for the land-use sector are taken from the country's First Biennial Transparency Report where available, and otherwise from Grassi et al (2022): Carbon fluxes from land 2000–2020: bringing clarity to countries' reporting. Future emissions, covering the period 2025-2070, follow a 1.5°C-compatible pathway downscaled to the national level. Positive values represent emissions from deforestation, harvesting, and soil respiration, while negative values reflect CO₂ removals through afforestation and reforestation.

    Methodology

    Data References

1.5°C compatible LULUCF pathways

For the EU, all the illustrative pathways analysed here follow generally the same trajectory. In these pathways, the net sink is initially sustained mainly by a large carbon sink, which grows until peaking in 2030, while gross emissions are projected to decrease slightly before stabilising around 2030.

Pathways show that net LULUCF removals would increase from 263 MtCO2/year in 2022 to roughly 290 MtCO2/year by 2030, a 10% shift. This change is primarily driven by a reduction in LULUCF emissions as deforestation slows and is stopped by 2030 rather than an increase in the overall sink. By 2050, net LULUCF removals are expected to shrink by 32% compared to 2020.

The illustrative pathways show that the net sink would need to be limited to 290 MtCO2/year by 2030 to align with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limit. In 2023, the EU revised the LULCUF Regulation (2023/839)8, setting an EU wide 2030 LULUCF target of 310 MtCO2e net removals between 2026 and 2030 – targeting an additional 20 MtCO2 beyond those in 1.5°C compatible pathways. This target excludes any industrial form of removals (i.e. BECCs and DACCs).

The EU intends to use this full 310 MtCO2e net removals target to count towards achieving its 2030 GHG reduction target of 55%. This overreliance on the LULUCF sink to achieve emissions reductions may allow the EU to avoid making much needed emissions reductions in other sectors that should be achieved through mitigation measures. The future LULUCF sink is highly uncertain – as planted trees mature, their sequestration potential saturates.9,10 Concurrently, climate risks such as fires, droughts, storms and pests increasingly undermine forest carbon uptake.11 The effect of CO2 fertilization also weakens as emissions fall in 1.5°C pathways and other limiting factors, such as water stress, intensify.12 Declining ecosystem productivity and carbon stock resilience further raise concerns about the long-term sustainability of forest-based removals under climate stress.13

the European Union's LULUCF emissions

MtCO₂ / year

Pathway

  • Graph description

    Historical CO2 emissions 1990-2020 for the land-use sector are taken from the country's First Biennial Transparency Report where available, and otherwise from Grassi et al (2022): Carbon fluxes from land 2000–2020: bringing clarity to countries' reporting. Future emissions, covering the period 2025-2070, follow a 1.5°C-compatible pathway downscaled to the national level. Positive values represent emissions from deforestation, harvesting, and soil respiration, while negative values reflect CO₂ removals through afforestation and reforestation.

    Methodology

    Data References

Forestry activities

Deforestation is outpacing reforestation in the EU, with a loss of almost 1.2 million hectares (ha) of net forested area on average annually between 2016-2020. Deforestation in the EU is primarily driven by land clearing for settlement expansion, demand for timber, and expanding grazing space for livestock.14 This gap has been fluctuating since 2000, but large-scale deforestation between 2016-2020 has widened the gap significantly. The analysed pathways show that total deforested land area will decrease by 70% between 2020 and 2030.

While the illustrative pathways assume deforestation halts by 2030, they do not include future afforestation/deforestation (A/R) due to negative albedo effects, where additional tree cover may result in a net warming effect. After deforestation is halted, the forest area change remains negligible out to 2070. As a result, future emissions are driven by the dynamics of the existing sink under climate change and past levels of A/R. Studies which take a more granular approach to mapping albedo effects find the EU has the potential to reforest 12 Mha while minimising negative albedo effects. If implemented, this additional forest cover could remove an additional 58 MtCO2/year.15

the European Union's Forest area change

Million hectares / year

Pathway

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