FFSM: a model for the French forestry and wood industry that takes into account forestry issues in the fight against climate change.

Summary Within the framework of policies aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, France now relies heavily on energy substitution. This is reflected in the implementation of aid plans for the mobilization of wood energy or the production of heat from biomass. On the other hand, the action of the State is not based, to date, on measures favoring carbon sequestration in forests because of the very partial consideration of in situ sequestration in international climate policies resulting from the Kyoto Protocol. Researchers at the Nancy Forest Economics Laboratory have developed the French Forest Sector Model (FFSM), a bioeconomic model of the French forestry sector, used for climate policy simulations and impact analysis. The first results of the FFSM model show that: (i) an ambitious substitution policy can cause tensions on the resource and on the industrial wood markets. (ii) a sequestration policy has a better carbon balance by 2020 than a substitution policy. (iii) the implementation of a generalized carbon tax would have a positive overall effect on the French forestry and wood industry.