Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Bioenergy is Putting Britain’s Energy Security At Risk

New analysis shows that the volume of energy crops the Government would need to import every year by 2050 to
fulfil the requirements of its strategy would require up to 2.4 million hectares of land overseas to grow them. This is equivalent to all the arable land that Denmark has, As well as throwing up important questions for climate justice this reveals why security of supply is such an issue. If global demand for wood pellets increases as other countries seek to develop BECCS in pursuit of their own climate goals, there is a real risk that food production will be squeezed. The UK Government does not appear to have seriously engaged with realities of finite resources and global market dynamics.

Report of the Climate Forestry Committee: Recommendations for Climate-Oriented Forest Management Guidelines

Massachusetts was the first state in the US to recognize that burning forest biomass generally increases emissions compared to fossil fuels, ultimately deleting biomass electricity plants from the list of technologies eligible to receive renewable energy subsidies. The state’s science-based approach to policymaking on climate is now showcased in a this report on forests as climate solutions.

Forests’ hidden secrets webinar

To be able to effectively protect and restore Europe’s forests, we need reliable and up-to-date datasets at the disposal of national and EU authorities as well as the public.

On 12 October 2023, Greens/EFA organised a conference on forest monitoring in advance of an upcoming legislative proposal from the European Commission.

Net carbon accounting and reporting are a barrier to understanding the mitigation value of forest protection in developed countries

Meeting the Paris Agreement global warming target requires deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions as well as removals from the atmosphere into land sinks, especially forests. While international climate policy in the land sector does now recognize forest protection as a mitigation strategy, it is not receiving sufficient attention in developed countries even though they experience emissions from deforestation as well as from logging of managed forests.

The carbon costs of global wood harvests

After agriculture, wood harvest is the human activity that has most reduced the storage of carbon in vegetation and soils. Although felled wood releases carbon to the atmosphere in various steps, the fact that growing trees absorb carbon has led to different carbon-accounting approaches for wood use, producing widely varying estimates of carbon costs. Many approaches give the impression of low, zero or even negative greenhouse gas emissions from wood harvests because, in different ways, they offset carbon losses from new harvests with carbon sequestration from growth of broad forest areas. Attributing this sequestration to new harvests is inappropriate because this other forest growth would occur regardless of new harvests and typically results from agricultural abandonment, recovery from previous harvests and climate change itself.

Expert review of the science underlying nature-based climate solutions

Nature-based climate solutions (NbCS) are conservation, restoration and improved management strategies (pathways) in natural and working ecosystems with the primary motivation to mitigate GHG emissions and remove CO2 from the atmosphere1 (similar to ecosystem-based mitigation2).

Viable nature-based climate solutions (NbCS) are needed to achieve climate goals expressed in international agreements like the Paris Accord. Many NbCS pathways have strong scientific foundations and can deliver meaningful climate benefits but effective mitigation is undermined by pathways with less scientific certainty. Here we couple an extensive literature review with an expert elicitation on 43 pathways and find that at present the most used pathways, such as tropical forest conservation, have a solid scientific basis for mitigation. However, the experts suggested that some pathways, many with carbon credit eligibility and market activity, remain uncertain in terms of their climate mitigation efficacy.

Forests and climate: Loggings, carbon sinks and compensation benefits of using wood

As well as reducing fossil fuel use, forests are key in mitigating climate change since forests remove
significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forests also provide raw materials for
products and fuel for energy production, which decrease fossil emissions to the atmosphere when
substituting more fossil emissions-intensive alternatives. Carbon stored in wood-based products is also
an additional benefit of this. However, we know that harvesting, at least in the short term, reduces the
carbon sink of a forest. If forestry is looked at from the perspective of climate change mitigation, there
are some relevant questions which require attention.

European Union’s Last Intact Forest Landscapes are at A Value Chain Crossroad between Multiple Use and Intensified Wood Production

The European Union’s last large intact forest landscapes along the Scandinavian Mountain range in Sweden offer unique opportunities for conservation of biodiversity, ecological integrity and resilience. However, these forests are at a crossroad between intensified wood production aimed at bio-economy, and rural development based on multi-functional forest landscapes for future-oriented forest value chains.

Effects of forest-fuel harvesting on the diversity of dead wood and epixylic macrolichens in clear-cuts

Forest-fuel harvesting (FFH) is a growing industry in countries of intensive forest management. FFH is the collection of logging residues for energy production interconnected with thinning and clear-cutting, and it reduces especially the amount of fine woody debris (FWD) and stumps on clear-cuts. With dead wood already being a scarce resource in managed forests, the practice may cause further species loss among dead wood dependent, saproxylic species.