Industrialization and the climate impact of land systems: the case of Austria, 1830-2020

Industrialization has not only resulted in surging emissions from fossil energy combustion, it has also fundamentally altered the role of land use in greenhouse gas budgets. Most notably, a shift from deforestation to reforestation has coincided with industrialization in many countries of the world, while agricultural intensification has led to increasing agricultural emissions, but declining emissions intensity of agricultural products. Using Austria, a small European industrialized country as an example, and adopting a long-term socio-ecological perspective covering the period 1830-2020, this contribution presents how industrialization has shaped the climate impact of land use, and how it affected biomass production in forestry and agriculture. It explores the socio-political context and drivers of land-use change based on qualitative and quantitative analyses, and discusses challenges and opportunities for land-based climate-change mitigation today.