Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Future on Fire: How the EU Burns Trees in the Name of Renewable Energy

This report demonstrates that many wood-burning power plants and wood pellet manufacturing plants in the EU appear to be using trees logged directly from forests, despite claims to use sawdust and other mill waste for fuel and feedstock. European Commission scientists have warned that burning trees for energy undermines both the EU’s climate and nature restoration goals.

Does wood bioenergy help or harm the climate?

The EU, UK, US, and other nations consider wood to be a carbon neutral fuel, ignoring the carbon dioxide emitted from wood combustion in their greenhouse gas accounting. Many countries subsidize wood energy – often by burning wood pellets in place of coal for electric power – to meet their renewable energy targets. But can wood bioenergy help cut greenhouse emissions in time to limit the worst damage from climate change? The argument in favor seems obvious: wood, a renewable resource, must be better than burning fossil fuels. But wood emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour than coal – and far more than other fossil fuels. Therefore, the first impact of wood bioenergy is to increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, worsening climate change.

Standing Up to Drax & Vattenfall’s Tree Burning

Recording of a webinar from Wednesday 20th April about how we can help protect forests, wildlife, communities and the climate from tree burning by big energy companies such as Drax and Vattenfall.

Quantifying the loophole and sustainability impacts of bioenergy being rated zero emissions in the EU Emissions Trading System and Effort Sharing Regulation

For the first time ever the ignored emissions of burning biomass – burning trees – in the EU have been quantified. 234 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2019, more than 15% of all emissions currently reported in the Emissions Trading System (ETS). Yet the emissions from the combustion of biomass are not included in what industries must account for in the ETS. The fact the emissions from biomass are ignored represents a huge subsidy for installations burning biomass, as the ETS otherwise requires polluters to pay a carbon price for their CO2 emissions.

Forests can save us, but only if we save them first – the case of Finland: How to Ensure EU Climate and Bioenergy Policies work for forests and people.

As a forested country, Finland has a large potential to increase its carbon sinks. Sanna Marin’s coalition government aims to be the first fossil-free welfare state and become carbon neutral in 2035 and carbon negative thereafter. While we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, peat and Russian energy, pressures on forests increase. Forest loggings are already at a record high, and most forest biomass ends up as energy. Over consumption increases our reliance on raw materials. The positive news is that researchers have identified multiple ways to enhance forest carbon sinks and protect biodiversity at the same time. As the recent IPCC report points out, only biodiverse ecosystems are able to adapt to the impacts of heating. By saving forests, we can save ourselves.

Forest fuel = Fossil fuel? ㅣ Burning biomass can’t stop climate change

Biomass produces heat and electricity by burning wood reduced to pellets. These pellets are composed of roundwood and logging residues and often burned with a mixture of coal.

The Korean government sees biomass as renewables and pushes more support for this forest fuel than it does for solar or wind power. However, most of these pellets sourced within the country come from destructive clear-cutting. Science says burning trees quickly releases a massive amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which could otherwise be contained in those trees for centuries.

Mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss starts from protecting and restoring our forests back to their natural state. The future is not in flames.

How UNFCCC carbon accounting has created a biomass delusion is contributing to climate change and global inequity

Big biomass burns wood in huge volumes for electricity and industrial heat. Large scale use of forest biomass adversely affects climate, biodiversity, communities, and the transition to low carbon renewables. Burning wood for energy is emissive. In fact burning wood for energy produces at least as much CO2 as burning coal per unit of energy produced, and usually more. Yet many countries treat biomass energy as zero carbon or as carbon neutral and therefore
give it financial and regulatory support as a ‘renewable’ energy.

What does “fit for 55” mean for forests?

WHY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S 2030 CLIMATE AND ENERGY PROPOSAL IS UNFIT FOR FORESTS
As part of her bid to be European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen committed to increasing the European Union’s (EU) target for cutting greenhouse gases from 40 to 55 per cent. Now that she is President, the Commission has set about revising its climate and energy legislation to be ‘fit for 55’. They released their proposals in July 2021. This briefing looks at three key parts of that legislation package (the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry Regulation (LULUCF) and the Forest Strategy) and analyses what effect they will have on forests. Its conclusions are worrying.

Trapped Outside the Conservation Fortress: The Intersection of Global Conservation Efforts and Systematic Human Rights Violations

The report documents systematic human rights abuses against Indigenous Peoples across protected areas worldwide. It identifies trends occurring in an almost identical manner across 10 protected areas worldwide. These trends include forced displacements, losses of ancestral lands, beatings, sexual violence, looting, extrajudicial killings, and torching of property, often perpetrated by empowered, overzealous, and militarized law enforcement personnel and park rangers.