The carbon footprint of traditional woodfuels

Robert Bailis (), Rudi Drigo, Adrian Ghilardi and Omar Masera
Additional contact information
Robert Bailis: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Rudi Drigo: Località Collina 5
Adrian Ghilardi: Center for Environmental Geography Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Omar Masera: Center for Ecosystems Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Nature Climate Change, 2015, vol. 5, issue 3, 266-272

Abstract: Abstract Over half of all wood harvested worldwide is used as fuel, supplying ∼9% of global primary energy. By depleting stocks of woody biomass, unsustainable harvesting can contribute to forest degradation, deforestation and climate change. However, past efforts to quantify woodfuel sustainability failed to provide credible results. We present a spatially explicit assessment of pan-tropical woodfuel supply and demand, calculate the degree to which woodfuel demand exceeds regrowth, and estimate woodfuel-related greenhouse-gas emissions for the year 2009. We estimate 27–34% of woodfuel harvested was unsustainable, with large geographic variations. Our estimates are lower than estimates from carbon offset projects, which are probably overstating the climate benefits of improved stoves. Approximately 275 million people live in woodfuel depletion ‘hotspots’—concentrated in South Asia and East Africa—where most demand is unsustainable. Emissions from woodfuels are 1.0–1.2 Gt CO2e yr−1 (1.9–2.3% of global emissions). Successful deployment and utilization of 100 million improved stoves could reduce this by 11–17%. At US$11 per tCO2e, these reductions would be worth over US$1 billion yr−1 in avoided greenhouse-gas emissions if black carbon were integrated into carbon markets. By identifying potential areas of woodfuel-driven degradation or deforestation, we inform the ongoing discussion about REDD-based approaches to climate change mitigation.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (81)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2491 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:5:y:2015:i:3:d:10.1038_nclimate2491

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2491

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().