GHG emissions from Dutch landscapes - CcSP Mitigation theme

 
Land use and management greatly determine the emission of the greenhouse gases (GHG) carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from the Dutch landscape. Land use is an ambiguous source of GHG because besides emission there is also sequestration of GHG. This greatly differs from other sectors that emit GHG. In the Netherlands around 10% of all emissions is from terrestrial sources en another 5%
is from land use related activities (Maas et al., 2010).  

As a result of in increase of emissions of GHG climate is changing. To be able to control the consequences of climate change the temperature should not increase with more than 2 degrees worldwide of the next 100 years. This was the starting point for climate negotiations in December 2009 in Copenhagen. It requires a reduction of GHG emissions of 60 – 80% compared with the emissions in 2000. Europe and The Netherlands have formulated a target to reduce GHG emissions by 20% to 30% compared with 1990. Realizing this would require major changes in our energy, industry and transport management, but also in all economic sectors with regard to land use. Reductions in the first category are mainly realized by the so called European Emission Trade System (EU-ETS). The second category, however, where terrestrial emissions play a big role with 15% of the total emissions, requires additional policy. The agricultural sector will have to realize a reduction target under the EU Effort Sharing Decisions (ESD). Options to include the emissions from the agricultural sector in the emission reduction targets of the EU27 are currently under research. Resulting changes will have a direct and significant effect on the use and management of natural and agricultural land in The Netherlands.

In the Kyoto protocol many countries have imposed themselves to report the amount of emitted GHG. These reports contain calculations for the emissions of industry and traffic, but also include emissions and amount of stored carbon in agricultural and natural ecosystems. These emissions are calculated according to an international standard. The main characteristic of the calculations of the agriculture and other forms of land use is that the amount of emissions are uncertain and the general approach wherein local and regional factors play a minor role. The climate treaty continuously challenges countries to improve their emission calculations and to decrease uncertainties. These actions will enable a more realistic approach to reduce the GHG emissions through an increased visibility of regional and local measures, which will lead to more local and regional initiatives. Improving these uncertainties will tell us whether our forest emits or stores carbon and which peat areas produce methane and or carbon.

The goal to better quantify GHG emissions from the landscape and to decrease these emissions, leads to many new research questions. Climate changes Spatial Planning has worked on improving and enhancing emission estimations in time and space, reducing uncertainties in emission data of terrestrial ecosystems and designing measures to reduce land use emissions. For an overview of the Mitigation projects, look at the theme page Mitigation.