Forests and climate in focus as Swedish Climate Policy Council secretariat visits SLU

The Swedish Climate Policy Council is an independent, interdisciplinary expert body that evaluates whether the Government’s overall policies are consistent with Sweden’s climate targets. Each year, the Council submits a report to the Government assessing climate policy and emissions trends and providing recommendations for the way forward.

For its 2027 report, the Council has chosen to examine how policy can be developed to make the most of the different ways forests can contribute to climate mitigation, while also taking biodiversity, economic and social values into account.

The forest landscape in focus

To learn more about the role of forests in the carbon balance, how forests may be affected by a changing climate, and which measures could contribute to climate mitigation and strengthen forest resilience, the Council’s secretariat visited SLU’s research environments outside Vindeln. Professor Hjalmar Laudon took the visitors into the forests of Västerbotten to show them how researchers investigate these questions in practice.

During the tour, they visited a research environment where forests, soils, water and the atmosphere have been studied over many years. Long-term measurement series are combined with experiments and advanced research infrastructure to understand how different parts of the forest landscape are connected and how they change over time.

One of the stops was the 150-metre ICOS tower. Here, researchers measure exchanges of carbon, water and energy between the forest and the atmosphere, among other things. But the carbon cycle in the forest landscape also involves what happens in soils and water. Researchers in the area therefore also monitor water and carbon in soils, groundwater and streams.

By combining long-term measurements with experiments, researchers can study how the forest landscape is affected by climate, water flows and different forms of land use.

Knowledge for the work ahead

“It has been very interesting and has also highlighted just how complex forest-related issues are. It has been valuable to have the opportunity to ask questions and deepen our understanding. We will now take this knowledge with us in our continued work and will return to Hjalmar and other researchers along the way,” says Ola Alterå, Head of the Secretariat at the Swedish Climate Policy Council.

The visit was organised within WIFORCE, Wallenberg Initiatives in Forest Research, where Hjalmar Laudon is Deputy Programme Director.

“Our research is not only relevant to the research community, but to society as a whole. Forests are absolutely central to Sweden’s climate efforts, but important questions remain about how we should best manage them to make the most of their potential climate benefits,” says Hjalmar Laudon, Professor of Forest Landscape Biogeochemistry at SLU.

The Swedish Climate Policy Council’s report will be submitted to the Government in March 2027.