Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

The Green Energy Scandal Exposed

The wood-burning Drax power station in Yorkshire provides 12 per cent of the UK’s renewable energy. It has already received £6 billion in green energy subsidies from the government. But are the wood pellets the power station burns really as sustainable as the company claims? Reporter Joe Crowley investigates where the wood comes from and uncovers an environmental scandal. He reveals how Drax is chopping down trees and taking logs from some of the world’s most precious forests.

What have we learned about biochar since 2011? An update on the report Biochar: A Critical Review of Science and Policy

In 2011 Biofuelwatch published Biochar: A Critical Review of Science and Policy. In that report we highlighted the uncertainties about biochar including the large land area that would be required to supply biomass for a global scale impact, the contradictory results to date with respect to any long-term carbon sequestration potential (thousands of years as claimed by many proponents who blithely extrapolated from ancient Terra Preta).

Given recent attention to biochar, for example in the context of the IPCC land sector mitigation report, we decided it would be important to update our understanding. We therefore recently reviewed literature published since publication of our report.

Biochar: A Critical Review of Science and Policy

As the impacts of climate change escalate, efforts to develop new technologies and new approaches to reducing emissions are promoted. One proposal is to sequester carbon in soils using biochar. Biochar is essentially fine grained charcoal. Advocates claim that adding biochar to soils will store carbon safely away from the atmosphere for hundreds or even thousands of years, while boosting soil fertility and providing other benefits.

What is the basis of these claims? Is biochar really a viable approach?

This report takes a critical look at the claims around biochar, reviews the science underlying the claims, provides an overview of what biochar advocates are pushing for in terms of policies and supports, and presents an outline of the companies involved.

The 2022 Land Gap Report

The growing push for climate mitigation has given rise to a new urgency around land use. Countries making ‘net zero’ pledges make up the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions. Additional ‘net zero’ pledges are coming from non-state actors, especially the private sector. These pledges usually rely on land-based carbon dioxide removals which are then used to offset a theoretical equivalent amount of fossil fuel emissions in national greenhouse gas inventories.

This momentum raises serious concerns if the mitigation burden is shifted away from reducing fossil fuel emissions and onto land, local communities and ecosystems.

2023 Update on the Land Gap Report

Update in 2023 on the Land Gap Report published in 2022.

The briefing reviews climate pledges for all UN Members. This includes 197 countries as well as the EU. From this review of pledges, it was possible to quantify the land area requirements for 142 pledges that relied on carbon dioxide removal, including land and forest restoration, reforestation, and for a very small number of countries, BECCS.

The update takes into account new country pledges submitted during the last year and analysis that provides new information on previous pledges. It highlights that a few high and upper-middle income countries are responsible for over 85 per cent of total land use required to deliver climate pledges.

Climate impacts in northern forests

AirClim’s Northern Forests and Climate Change project aims to increase the visibility of Northern forests in the international climate debate. Their report Climate impacts in northern forests takes a look at the important role the boreal and temperate forests that stretch across the north of Asia, North America and Europe play in our climate system and for climate mitigation.

Biomassan verotuksen laajentamisen mahdollisuudet ja haasteet

A study prepared by AFRY Management Consulting Oy for the Finnish state assesses the possibilities and challenges of biomass taxation in Finland. In Finnish

National Energy and Climate Plans and Carbon Sink Analysis for EU Member States

A new report by PFPI assesses how well the EU Member States have met reporting requirements on bioenergy and the land sink in their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), and includes the latest data on biomass use, the forest and land carbon sink, and modeling projections. The report found that most Member States have failed to provide basic information in their draft NECPs on bioenergy and its impact on the forest and land carbon sink, earning them failing grades.

Surviving trees and deadwood moderate changes in soil fungal communities and associated functioning after natural forest disturbance and salvage logging

This research demonstrates a significant response of soil fungal communities to natural forest disturbance and salvage logging, with consequences for decomposition and soil organic matter dynamics and concludes that the retention of surviving trees and deadwood as biological legacies attenuated associated changes to a significant extent, highlighting their importance for the preservation of ectomycorrhizal fungi and the maintenance of decomposition processes after disturbance.