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13 May 2016 Mr. Miguel Arias Cañete Commissioner Climate Action and Energy Mr. Phil Hogan Commissioner Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioners, Dear Colleagues, We wish to congratulate you, and all of us, for a very successful event - the signing of the historic Paris Agreement - which took place in New York on 22 April 2016. With this important step, the EU and its Member States confirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement and the fight against climate change. Now we need to move swiftly on implementation. In this respect, we are looking forward to Commission’s proposals on the EU’s Effort Sharing Decision and on Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). We as ministers coming from very different parts of Europe, with very diverse national characteristics and natural circumstances, highlight the importance of the LULUCF sector, especially forests, in the EU’s 2030 climate framework. Our countries are the most forested Member States of the EU, with an average forest cover of more than 50 %, one and a half times higher than the EU average. Despite our small number, we represent more than 45 % of the EU’s forest area, and our wellbeing is dependent on sustainable management of our forests. Sustainable forest management and agriculture have multiple objectives, including food security and they provide a number of co-benefits and opportunities for synergies, e.g. Promoting a sustainable economy; this sector will have an increasing role in the transition process from fossil fuel based economies to sustainable bio-based economies; Promoting a resilient economy, supporting the aim to halt the loss of biodiversity and improving the state of Europe’s species, habitats, ecosystems and services, including by adapting to climate change; Sustainable Agriculture, supporting headline targets of the common agricultural policy, in particular retaining a degree of self-sufficiency in the long term; Sustainable Forestry, aiming at maintaining vital and diverse forest ecosystems, which produce an annual yield of timber, fibre or energy from forests; Safe and Sustainable Energy policy, promoting a sustainable supply of bioenergy, supporting the long term climate and energy targets of the Union and contributing to the goals of the Energy Union, e.g. decreasing dependence on energy imports. Our countries practice sustainable agriculture and sustainable forest management. In agriculture the potential for cost-efficient mitigation is limited. Forests provide bioenergy and long-lasting renewable forest products. The EU’s climate and energy policies should be coherent with and supportive of these practices. There are significant national differences between the Member States in terms of forest coverage, land use, forest management, natural conditions, GHG profiles and mitigation potential. These diverse national circumstances need to be fully considered whilst ensuring that forest policy remains the responsibility of Member States, and matters under EU and MS shared competence are subject to subsidiarity. The Paris Agreement requires the international community to achieve rapid emissions reductions and to achieve a balance in emissions and removals in the second half of this century. It is clear that LULUCF will contribute significantly to this low-emissions pathway. The current treatment of LULUCF under the Kyoto Protocol and in the EU is a first step towards full integration of the sector, but there is room for improvement. For proper implementation of the NDC and the Paris Agreement, future EU policies concerning the LULUCF sector need to be clear for Member States. The EU needs to move forward swiftly with its own climate policies with one of the important questions being, how to include LULUCF into its climate framework. In this respect, we need to ensure the overall ambition and environmental integrity whilst providing opportunity for sustainable agriculture and forestry. We wish to share with you our comments on how to include the LULUCF sector into the EU’s 2030 climate framework: The contribution from LULUCF must be considered in a holistic manner, acknowledging that this sector, especially forests, has the potential to contribute positively to climate change mitigation in manifold ways, e.g. via reducing emissions and increasing removals and substituting fossil fuels and materials with higher life-cycle emissions; The contribution also needs to be sustainable; thus long-term stability of mitigation actions should be promoted, while avoiding incentivizing short-term actions only; Mitigation actions should also be linked to increasing the adaptation potential and promoting resilience of ecosystems with a view to safeguarding future ecosystem services; The LULUCF sector has some special characteristics and we are willing to discuss how flexibility between the LULUCF and non-ETS sectors can be established, while ensuring the overall environmental integrity. We should move to a land-based accounting system, with at least forest land, cropland and grassland to become compulsory. In this respect, we should make use of IPCC 2006 Guidelines and UNFCCC reporting practices as much as possible and build on internationally agreed approaches. It is important to ensure that EU’s own system makes full use of the reporting and review system under the UNFCCC in order to increase efficiency and avoid the current duplication; The sustainable management of forests offers the greatest mitigation potential. We prefer a reference level approach, as already applied for the period 2013-2020. The reference levels should be nationally determined and represent recent policies, and a technical assessment process should be used to increase transparency; As national circumstances are quite different within the EU MS, it is of utmost importance to keep a balanced approach to different land categories and different mitigation measures, aimed not only at increasing the forest area (e.g. due to afforestation). The potential for afforestation varies significantly within the EU, and is rather limited particularly in forest rich countries. Putting emphasis on afforestation only would penalize forest rich countries and introduce an early action malus. At the same time, some land use change from forest land to other land uses will continue, especially in forest rich countries. It would be unfortunate if those countries enhancing removals by sinks and providing significant climate benefit through sustainable forest management would be penalized by inappropriate accounting rules. We recognize the important role of long-lasting forest products through the inclusion of Harvested Wood Products into accounting. On agriculture, we highlight the well-justified need to maintain and keep up sustainable agriculture production throughout the Union, whilst recalling the limited emissions limitation potential, and while at the same time seeking to stimulate emission reductions in agriculture. The inclusion of LULUCF sector into EU’s 2030 climate framework should ensure a balanced and sustainable use of forest and agriculture lands, cost-effectivity in implementation and investments, ambitious mitigation measures while responding to increasing demand of food and fibre. We look forward to working with you and all Member States to find a balanced and fair outcome that represents the interests of all Member States. Mr. Andrä Rupprechter Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Austria Mr. Davor Romić Minister of Agriculture, Croatia Mr. Slaven Dobrović Minister of Environmental and Nature Protection, Croatia Mr. Richard Brabec Minister of the Environment, the Czech Republic Mr. Marko Pomerants Minister of the Environment, Estonia Mr. Kimmo Tiilikainen Minister of Agriculture and the Environment, Finland Mr. Jānis Dūklavs Minister of Agriculture, Latvia Mr. Kęstutis Trečiokas Minister of the Environment, Lithuania Mrs. Cristiana Pasca Palmer Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests, Romania Ms. Irena Majcen Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, Slovenia Mr. Dejan Židan Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, Slovenia Mr. Sven-Erik Bucht Minister for Rural Affairs, Sweden Ms. Åsa Romson Minister for Climate and the Environment, Sweden