Carbon Management

Biomass and Bioenergy in Pathways Towards Low-Carbon Futures

Many scenarios achieving ambitious climate targets include significant contributions from bioenergy and other biobased products, often combined with carbon capture and storage to achieve negative emissions. Still, studies differ significantly in terms of the potential and usage of biomass at global and regional levels. This is partly due to uncertainties surrounding the availability and competitiveness of non-biomass-based mitigation options. However, it is also because the scope for bio-based options is influenced by many genuinely uncertain factors.

As a case in point, the potential supply of biomass for energy depends on the priority given to bioenergy versus other biobased products and the total biomass supply potential in agriculture and forestry. In turn, this depends on natural conditions (e.g., climate and soil fertility), how societies prioritize nature conservation and the protection of soil, water and biodiversity, and how agricultural and forestry practices reflect these priorities.

There are concerns about potential negative impacts of increasing the supply of biomass to support the growing use of biobased products, including deforestation, soil degradation and increased pressure on scarce water resources. However, studies also demonstrate that new biomass production can be integrated with existing agricultural and forestry practices, thereby increasing the supply of biomass while improving the efficiency with which resources are used and mitigating the environmental impacts of current land use.

Uncertainties surrounding the potential for bioenergy and other biobased mitigation options poses challenges for the development of policies and mitigation strategies within companies. They also complicate the public debate – not the least because it can be difficult to understand why different studies reach such different conclusions.

Different geographical focus may explain contrasting conclusions in various studies, as the conditions for producing and using biomass vary around the world. This means that optimal implementation strategies will differ depending on the context – and that conclusions in individual studies cannot be generalised as valid across time and space. Studies may also arrive at different conclusions due to differences in methodology and/or assumptions about factors with large influence on the potential for bio-based options.

This Article Collection aims to improve our understanding of the role of biomass and bioenergy in the transition to a low-carbon future. As previously mentioned, the potential of biobased solutions in the future depends on a variety of factors that may change in different ways. However, many of these changes are not driven by forces beyond society's control. A key objective is to clarify the influence of societal decisions on the direction of change. These decisions can relate to, for example, policies and investments targeting bioenergy and other renewable energies, the crediting of carbon storage in ecosystems, agricultural and forestry practices, and dietary choices.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Interactions between bioenergy systems and other energy systems in energy scenarios meeting climate targets.
• Prioritization of different biomass uses in cross-sectoral scenarios meeting climate targets.
• Importance of biomass use for fossil fuel substitution vs carbon storage over time
• Synergies and trade-offs between bioenergy and other biomass- and land-based options such as wood construction, afforestation/reforestation, and soil carbon management
• Opportunities to increase the supply of biomass by making better use of existing flows that are currently under-utilised.
• Treatment of dedicated biomass production systems in studies that assess bioenergy supply potentials. The contribution from dedicated production systems to the supply can be influenced in different ways, for example:
  • The assumed governance context can have a direct or indirect impact. For instance, a cap on biofuels produced from food and feed crops would have a direct impact, whereas the governance of land-based carbon removals could affect the potential for biomass crops indirectly. This can have a positive impact, such as crediting the carbon storage on lands cultivated with biomass crops, or a negative impact, such as incentivising land uses that solely target ecosystem carbon storage.
  • Assessments of future land availability for energy crops may adopt certain assumptions about, for example, dietary patterns, land productivity, and preferential uses of "surplus" agricultural land. The contribution of energy crops can also be determined by normative views. For example, it may be argued that such crops should only be cultivated on marginal land that is unsuitable for food production, or that they should not be cultivated at all due to competition for land with food production and/or natural ecosystems.

Keywords

1. Biomass
2. Bioenergy
3. Land use
4. Climate change mitigation
5. Governance

­­All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is May 7, 2027.

Please contact Kara Roberts at kara.roberts@taylorandfrancis.com with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system.

Guest Advisors declare no potential conflicts of interests, in line with our Editorial Policies.

Göran Berndes is professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His research integrates land use, industrial, transport and energy systems at scales ranging from local case studies to the global context. Much of his research has focused on the climate and environmental effects of bioenergy and other biobased systems. He has contributed to several IPCC reports and since 20 years involved in IEA Bioenergy, set up by the International Energy Agency. At Chalmers, he leads the profile Energy in a Circular Economy within Chalmers Energy Area of Advance.

Ruth Delzeit is a German geographer and agricultural economist whose research focuses on global land-use change, agricultural policy, and the environmental impacts of food and bioenergy systems. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Basel, where she leads the Research Group on Global and Regional Land Use Change. Before joining the University of Basel, she headed the Environment and Natural Resources research unit at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and also worked as a consultant for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Her work uses economic modeling to study how policies related to agriculture, climate, and renewable energy affect land use, biodiversity, and global sustainability.

Soheil Shayegh is the Director of Integration of Industrial & Planetary Carbon Cycle Program at CMCC Foundation in Italy. His research is on the interaction between human and natural systems with a focus on climate change interventions including carbon management.

Dr. Florian Kraxner is an international forest and land-system scientist working at the interface of sustainable forestry, climate change, biomass, bioenergy, CDR, biodiversity and the circular bioeconomy. Leads interdisciplinary research at IIASA combining forest/land-use modelling, scenario analysis and sustainability assessment. Current work extends to forest-based timber construction, long-term carbon storage and the Forestry–Construction–CO₂ Pump.