In a groundbreaking precedent and great result for the forests of Southeast Asia, South Korea has responded to mounting concerns about carbon emissions and deforestation, announcing an end to renewable subsidies for new biomass power and state-owned co-firing facilities starting January 2025, with phased reductions for existing plants. Read more analysis from our South Korean member group, Solutions For Our Climate, here.
The EU’s weak subsidies policy is now exposed and outflanked, and pressure is on Japan to abandon its support for major expansions to biomass energy, for which much of the feedstock would come from Vietnam and Indonesia, the same sources that Korea is abandoning.
“We celebrate this large step in the right direction which comes on the heels of our report Burning Up the Biosphere and is due to the hard work of Solutions For Our Climate (SFOC), which exposed the outsized subsidies regime that favoured destruction of forests and increased greenhouse gas emissions of the biomass energy industry, over wind and solar power,” said Ms. Peg Putt, Policy and Campaigns Coordinator of the Biomass Action Network (BAN), Environmental Paper Network (EPN) International.
“It’s not yet a complete removal of all subsidies for biomass burning, but it is very important globally and the largest policy rollback of its kind in Asia, and so we acknowledge the South Korean government’s responsiveness to concerns.”
“Logging and burning the Earth’s forests to fuel large-scale energy production is devastating to the climate, to biodiversity, and to communities throughout the production chain. The industry ignores serious climate justice issues where demand for biomass exacerbates conflict over land and forest resources, threatens the rights and livelihoods of indigenous and local communities, and pollutes surrounding communities, increasing respiratory and other diseases.”
Indonesia, which has mandated the introduction of co-firing biomass with coal in 107 generators at 52 government power stations, should heed the serious problems with co-firing coal as a so-called carbon abatement measure as South Korea has done. Up to 10 million hectares of forests are under threat due to that policy.
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For interview: Ms Peg Putt peg.putt@gmail.com (Eastern Australia time zone – AEDT)
Statement from SFOC: “South Korea to reduce government support for biomass energy, sending ripples across Asia” is here
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), Korea Forest Service, and Ministry of Environment’s new joint initiative is titled “Plans to Improve the Biomass Fuel and Power Market Structures”.
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