Paul Brannen, Public Affairs Director of the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois), has published a book on how use of timber, especially in construction, can help mitigate global warming. The book titled “Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown” draws not only on his experience at CEI-Bois, but also on his time as member of the European parliament, where he was involved with climate change legislation.

The focus of the new book is on the need to decarbonise construction and buildings in use if we are to slow and ultimately halt global warming. Together these account for an estimated 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, population growth, writes Brannen, means that a huge volume of new housing will need to be built in the next 25 years, making it more imperative that construction builds greener.

By 2050 the global population is forecast to have risen 25% to 10 billion. “The majority of these additional people will be in the Global South, and all will need somewhere to live,” says Brannen. “To meet this construction demand, the world will need to add 190 billion sq.m of new buildings every decade for the next 40 years.”

If this housing boom is not to generate huge volumes of greenhouse gas emissions, the building industry must use less steel, concrete and other carbon intensive materials. “This is where wood comes in as an alternative,” says Brannen. “By using more in the built environment, we can actively reduce our emissions.”

Another key issue for building more in wood, is to ensure there is enough of it available, so greater wood use must go hand in hand with forest maintenance and growth through sustainable forestry management and forest governance. “We need to better understand the benefits of forests and trees, especially their ability to sequester CO2 and store carbon,” says Brannen.

Brannen concludes by citing the research paper ‘Wood buildings as a climate solution’ by Austin Himes of Mississippi State University College of Forest Resources and Gwen Busby, Director of Economic for GreenWood Resources Inc.

It states that substituting conventional building materials with wood in half of new urban construction could provide 9% of global emissions reductions needed to meet 2030 targets for keeping global warming below 1.5°C.