Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Bankrolling ecosystem destruction – The EU must stop the cash flow to businesses destroying nature

In this report, a coalition of NGOs shows that 135 key actors in ecosystem risk sectors have received more than one-fifth of their total global credit since the 2015 Paris Agreement, and just under one-tenth of their current global investment, from EU-based financial institutions.

The report lays out the importance of EU regulation of the financial sector to align finance with the global 1.5°C and biodiversity targets, including ending any new provision of financial services to groups that contribute to nature destruction.

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced and satellite-derived approaches to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands. Despite regional variation, the predictions demonstrated remarkable consistency at a global scale, with only a 12% difference between the ground-sourced and satellite-derived estimates.

Why Biden Should Take a Stand Against the Biomass Industry

'Protect the communities that elected you' — While Pres. Biden has marketed himself as the environmental justice president, he still hasn't taken action on the biomass industry. Here's what he can do.

Europe’s energy policies fire up Estonia’s woodland warriors

In this episode of Europe Talks Back, Gail Rego tells the story of Liina Steinberg and her fight against the Estonian booming biomass industry. In the decades since independence from the Soviet Union, Estonia started relaxing its forest management practices, and large-scale logging has boomed to meet the demand for renewable energy and has become one of the EU’s largest exporters of wood pellets.

In the Shadow of Monoculture Plantations | Webinar

In 2004, people from rural communities in Brazil came together to declare September 21 as the Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations, to protest against the millions of hectares of land being planted with eucalyptus, pine, rubber, or oil palm for industrial purposes. Much of this industrial expansion of monocultures is still ongoing, particularly in the Global South, where communities face land grabbing, forcible eviction, and water and air pollution.

The Global Forest Coalition, as part of our efforts to support community struggles on the ground, conducted a webinar titled 'In the Shadow of Monoculture Plantations: The Urgent Need to Redirect Finance away from False Climate Solutions', on this year’s Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations. This is the recording of the webinar.

A la sombra de las plantaciones de monocultivos | Seminario web

En 2004, personas de comunidades rurales de Brasil se unieron para declarar el 21 de septiembre como el Día de Lucha contra los Monocultivos de Árboles y para protestar contra los millones de hectáreas de tierra que se estaban plantando con eucalipto, pino, caucho o palma aceitera con fines industriales. Gran parte de esta expansión industrial de los monocultivos sigue hoy en día en marcha, sobre todo en el Sur Global, donde las comunidades se enfrentan al acaparamiento de tierras, el desalojo forzoso y la contaminación del agua y el aire.

La Coalición Mundial por los Bosques, como parte de nuestros esfuerzos por apoyar las luchas comunitarias sobre el terreno, desea invitarles a un seminario web titulado A la sombra de las plantaciones de monocultivos: La urgente necesidad de redirigir la financiación lejos de las soluciones climáticas falsas.

À l’ombre des plantations en monoculture | Webinaire

En 2004, des membres des communautés rurales du Brésil se sont réunis pour déclarer le 21 septembre comme une Journée de lutte contre les monocultures d’arbres afin de protester contre les millions d’hectares de terres plantées d’eucalyptus, de pins, d’hévéas ou de palmiers à huile à des fins industrielles. Une grande partie de cette expansion industrielle des monocultures est toujours en cours, en particulier dans les pays du Sud, où les communautés sont confrontées à l’accaparement des terres, à l’expulsion forcée et à la pollution de l’eau et de l’air.

La Coalition mondiale des forêts, dans le cadre de ses efforts pour soutenir les luttes des communautés sur le terrain, souhaite vous inviter à un webinaire intitulé À l’ombre des plantations en monoculture : L’urgence de réorienter les financements vers de fausses solutions climatiques.

More than carbon sticks

In this report in the journal Nature, more than 200 scientists argue that the world’s forests have the potential to store up to 338 gigatons of carbon but stress that they can only act as carbon sinks if they are adequately restored and protected.

Towards a synthesized critique of forest-based ‘carbon-fix’ strategies

This article synthesizes critiques of ‘carbon-fix’ strategies in the forestry sector to clarify key concerns about reductionist treatments of forests and carbon and to facilitate further debate. It begins by asserting that since climate change mitigation has been placed at the centre of forest governance, forests have been deemed to serve as ‘carbon-fixing’ devices in ways that can be discerned across three distinct but inter-related categories: (i) carbon storage devices, (ii) carbon removal devices and (iii) net-zero bioenergy devices.