Greenhouse gas emissions and removals in land and forests

The land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector remains the only sector in Lithuania with the potential to sequester carbon. Since 1990, forest land has contributed the most to the LULUCF sector’s absorption capacity, which reached its highest level in 2010 when the annual absorption reached 10.7 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq). However, the ability to sequester carbon is diminishing and in 2023 was 51% lower than its peak in 2010. The main reasons for this are the change in forest age classes, as older stands with lower increments increase in prevalence, and the attacks of forest pests. Another source of carbon absorption, grassland, also faces reductions, since, with regard to agricultural land, conversion to cropland outpaces conversion to grassland. The GHG balance trend in grassland changed in 2023; currently, it emits 0.04 Mt CO2eq. However, in recent years cropland has shown the highest reduction in emissions and is projected to transition to absorption by 2030. Cropland emissions reduced by 96% between 1990 and 2023. The main reasons for this transition are the change in common agricultural practices and the application of sustainable land management. Current projections show that, by applying existing policy measures (e.g. the national energy and climate plan), Lithuania will exceed the EU target in the LULUCF sector by 4% by 2030 [1,2].