Abstract
BACKGROUND: Discussions about limiting anthropogenic emissions of CO[Formula: see text] often focus on transition to renewable energy sources and on carbon capture and storage (CCS) of CO[Formula: see text]. The potential contributions from forests, forest products and other low-tech strategies are less frequently discussed. Here we develop a new simulation model to assess the global carbon content in forests and apply the model to study active annual carbon harvest 100 years into the future. RESULTS: The numerical experiments show that under a hypothetical scenario of globally sustainable forestry the world's forests could provide a large carbon sink, about one gigatonne per year, due to enhancement of carbon stock in tree biomass. In addition, a large amount of wood, 11.5 GT of carbon per year, could be extracted for reducing CO[Formula: see text] emissions by substitution of wood for fossil fuels. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that carbon harvest from forests and carbon storage in living forests have a significant potential for CCS on a global scale.