Organizing the logic of Japan's forest carbon sinks programs: Towards assessing the forest carbon sinks needed to achieve net zero emissions.

Abstract

【タイトル】 Under the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Japan aims to achieve carbon neutrality (net zero emissions) by 2050. This research aims to identify the challenges in the policy rationale and logic of the Japanese government's forest carbon sinks programs to achieve this goal, and to propose corrective measures. Using logic models, we organized the causal and interrelated relationships among the measures in the Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures (both the Cabinet-approved version and the version announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) and the Basic Plan for Forests and Forestry. In the Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures, the forest removals target (approximately 31.2 million t-CO₂) and the carbon storage effect target from Harvested Wood Products (HWP) (approximately 6.8 million t-CO₂) for FY2030 are set as proximal outcomes, and the progress of some measures is tracked in policy evaluations. The Basic Plan for Forests and Forestry incorporates a multi-layered logic for achieving its targets; while the relationships between specific measures are clear, the relationships between the logic for achieving proximal outcomes and the "ideal state of forests" are less clear. Additionally, we analyzed the top 10% of the 158 plans for national and private forests, which are subordinate to the Basic Plan for Forests and Forestry. A high number of the targets for logging, thinning, and reforestation over the past five years in these plans remained unmet. We reviewed the evaluations of these performances and found that, in many cases, the reasons for non-achievement were unclear. The causes are thought to be unrealistic target-setting without considering changing circumstances, and a lack of personnel and expertise in the municipalities. Finally, we presented measures to address these issues.