Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Time: 15:00 CEST
Location: Online (Zoom)
This webinar, hosted by CMCC, will explore the role of large-scale afforestation and reforestation (AR) as climate mitigation strategies within Paris-aligned pathways, with a focus on their implications for biodiversity and land-use systems.
Large-scale afforestation/reforestation (AR) is often promoted as a cost-effective way to remove carbon from the atmosphere and support Paris-aligned land and energy transformation pathways. However, insights from dynamic land and energy-system modelling reveal a more complex picture. While strong climate action that prevents further ecosystem conversion can deliver significant biodiversity co-benefits, these gains may be offset when AR is deployed at very large scales (>150 million hectares), due to disproportionate losses of open, non-forest habitats. The findings also show that the scale of AR deployment has little effect on energy-system transformations before 2050 and only limited influence on long-term emissions. These results highlight the varied and species-specific biodiversity consequences of land-system transformations and that rapid near-term emission reductions remain essential for achieving the targets of the Paris agreement.
Presenter:
Patrick von Jeetze is a doctoral researcher in the land use transition lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He studied Global Change Ecology (M.Sc) within the Elite Network of Bavaria and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ecosystem Management (B.Sc.) from the Georg-August-University in Göttingen. His research interests include: ecosystem services & biodiversity, future of food systems, soil science and food security & global change.
Moderator:
Miodrag Stevanović is a Senior Scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in the Land-Use Transition Lab, and co-lead of the research Theme Nature within the lab. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Technical University of Berlin, and a Master’s degree in economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research focuses on land-use and agricultural system modeling, climate change impacts on agriculture, and mitigation options in the sector. A central focus of his current work is the role of nature in agricultural systems and its linkages to broader economic and financial sector.
Discussant:
Jonathan Doelman is a research scientist and project lead of the IMAGE land use team at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment. He holds a PhD in global environmental change of Utrecht University. He works with the IMAGE integrated assessment model which is regularly applied in global environmental assessment such as IPCC, IPBES and UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook. His area of expertise are scenario-based projections of land use in relation to the food system, climate change mitigation, biodiversity and other environmental and sustainability topics.
