Carbon Losses Due to Wood Harvesting and the Role of Wood Products - The Greenhouse Gas Balance of Italy - page 105

A worldwide study by Winjum et al. ( 1998 ) estimates net flows of carbon out of
forests and into products by using two accounting frameworks—the stock change
method, and the atmospheric flow method. They use simplified assumptions to make
estimates of net stock changes and net emissions to the atmosphere by world regions.
The highly variable duration of carbon stock in wood products depends on their
composition, their level of production-consumption and their average life cycle, an
extremely variable parameter (from few months for newsprint to many decades for
laminated beam).

7.3.1 Carbon Accounting Scheme for Wood Products in Italy

The question on how to account emissions or stock-changes for HWP in the con-
text of the UNFCCC has been extensively discussed and assessed internationally.
Different approaches have been proposed and they differ in how they allocate
emissions between wood producing and consuming countries, and in what pro-
cesses they focus on (Brown et al. 1998 ; Winjum et al. 1998 ; Lim et al. 1999 ).
In a study performed by Kloehn and Ciccarese ( 2005 ) the three approaches pro-
posed by IPCC ( 2003 ) were applied in order to estimate GHG balances in wood
products in Italy: production approach, stock change approach and atmospheric
flow approach (Nabuurs et al. 2003 ; Pingoud et al. 2006 ).
According to Kloehn and Ciccarese ( 2005 ), in 2008 in Italy, the stock was esti-
mated in 59 Mt C, using the production approach and 140 Mt C using the stock
change approach (Fig. 7.5 ). The carbon sink was estimated in 0.25 Mt C (or
0.92 Mt of CO 2 ) using the production approach and 1.12 Mt C (or 4.11 Mt CO 2 )
using the stock change approach. The lowest value obtained using the production
approach reflects the large volume of imported wood.
The results of this study indicate that through the atmospheric flow approach
wood products in Italy become a net source of carbon, up to 0.46 Mt C (or 1.69 Mt of

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Fig. 7.5 Trend of carbon stock in wood products (from Kloehn and Ciccarese 2005 modified)