In 2025, the EU agreed to a 90% net greenhouse gas reduction target for 2040 as a milestone toward climate neutrality by 2050. The policy package underpinning this target will include revised LULUCF provisions and new 2040 targets. The LULUCF Regulation is central to shifting Europe toward sustainable land use by reducing emissions, enhancing carbon sequestration, and redirecting incentives away from low-value, short-lived products while ensuring fair compensation for farmers, forest owners, and workers.
The current Regulation, adopted in 2023, sets a binding EU-wide net removal target of 310 MtCO₂eq by 2030, which is an increase compared to the current sink and previous targets, though still far below the potential of restoration practices identified by scientists and NGOs. Despite this progress, the EU is unlikely to meet the 2030 goal. Countries with historically large carbon sinks are now becoming net carbon emitters, such as Finland, Estonia and Latvia. Climate-driven disturbances and political choices, such as the continued drainage of organic soils, and unsustainable harvesting levels, are eroding carbon stocks and jeopardising biodiversity.
Besides their key role in determining the level of the natural sinks, forestry and land management play a vital role in sustaining rural economies and local communities. Europe’s land is among the most intensively used globally, yet forestry contributes only 0.17% to the EU’s GDP, and employment is declining. Current conventional forestry practices drive significant ecological and social harm while sidelining small forest owners, local sawmills, and community managers since subsidies and regulatory frameworks disproportionately benefit large-scale monoculture operators. Clear sustainability criteria and equitable market access are needed. Many experts therefore call for a shift toward close-to-nature forestry based on selective logging, natural regeneration and structural diversity. Long-term forest management planning must encompass public participation alongside strict protection of primary, old-growth, and naturally regenerated forests.
Healthy soils are equally essential for food security, resilience, and carbon storage. Intensive agricultural and forestry practices degrade soil health, accelerate carbon losses, and interact with rising temperatures and extreme weather. The overall effects of land use change and land management on soil organic carbon are 7-10 times larger than the direct effects of climate change, in particular due to the conversion of carbon-rich grasslands to croplands and forestry in the nordics. Agroecological, low-input farming can restore soil functions and strengthen community resilience.
Peatlands, the most carbon-rich ecosystems on Earth when kept wet, are being rapidly degraded. In Europe, nearly 50% of them have been drained for agriculture, forestry, or energy, turning them into significant carbon sources. Protecting intact peatlands and restoring degraded ones through rewetting is critical for climate mitigation, disaster risk reduction, and providing essential regulating ecosystem services. This importance is now reinforced under the Nature Restoration Regulation. Protecting and restoring forests, peatlands, and other natural ecosystems, while placing social welfare at their centre, is essential for a resilient and effective LULUCF framework.
Looking ahead to the 2040 climate architecture, this CAN Europe position paper outlines the following key recommendations to ensure the land sector meaningfully contributes to the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals.
Read the position in full here
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