Setting aside forests or harvesting them for bioenergy: Short‐term benefits for climate protection are still unknown

Forests play an important role in climate protection: they sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by means of annual increment and can store carbon for decades or even centuries. Bioenergy use of wood harvested from forests can substitute fossil fuels, but it releases biomass-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. What will be more advantageous for short-term climate protection in the next decades and for the decarbonization of the national economy and society in Germany in the years and decades to come (Climate Action Plan 2050, BMUB, 2016): the promotion of carbon storage in forests (BMUB, 2016, p. 67) or the harvesting of wood for bioenergy use and the substitution of fossil fuels (BMUB, 2016, p. 45)? This question has led to a scientific debate in GCB Bioenergy between Schulze et al. (2020a) who advocate in their opinion paper carbon balance gains from the use of wood for bioenergy compared to setting aside forests, and Welle et al. (2020) who criticize Schulze et al. (2020a) in a letter to the editor for having cited and used unsuitable data for carbon stock changes in protected forests of the Hainich National Park (Thuringia, central Germany). Both papers cite data from a report presenting analyses from two forest inventories conducted in the Hainich NP in 2000 and 2010 (NV Hainich, 2012). This protected forest area was used—in both publications—as an example for non-harvested forests. Based on other data of the Hainich report (NV Hainich, 2012), Welle et al. (2020) reach an opposite conclusion than Schulze et al. (2020a): setting aside forests has more benefits for climate protection in Germany than the harvesting for bioenergy use. In this letter, we will evaluate both publications by answering the questions whether (a) Schulze et al. (2020a) cited incorrectly from the Hainich report which led to the use of unsuitable data; (b) the data cited and used by Welle et al. (2020) have more significance for the Hainich area; and (c) the results of the Hainich inventory are a representative example of set-aside forests in Germany. The latter question is specifically important for general assessments of the climate protection benefits from either the non-harvesting of forests or their harvesting for bioenergy use. 1 | CORRECTNESS OF CITATIONS