Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Forests to Burn. The Real Cost of Bioenergy

Forests to Burn: The real cost of bioenergy” is the first comprehensive study on forest biomass used in Poland for energy production. The report maps the situation of the market in Poland, answers questions about how much wood we burn and where it comes from. It explains the reasons for biomass market development and the consequences of forest biomass combustion for climate and nature.

Wind and solar power continue to contribute much more to the UK’s phase out of coal than biomass

In the ten years between 2011 and 2020 the UK almost entirely phased out the use of coal for electricity generation. While bioenergy in the UK has grown during that time period, it has been a far smaller factor in the UK’s coal phase out than either wind and solar or demand reduction. This is despite the UK burning more wood and importing more wood pellets to be burnt than any other country on the planet, and spending billions of pounds of bill-payers’ money on subsidies for the biomass industry.

Our message to world leaders: Cut ties with Drax’ “Green Energy Scandal”

A video message to world leaders: Cut ties with Drax' "Green Energy Scandal"

Enviva Inc

The activist investment firm Blue Orca Capital published a damning report on Enviva, asserting that the firm is engaged in “textbook greenwashing”

EU-Subventionen für Pellets :Europa auf dem Holzweg

In Europas Kohlekraftwerken werden immer mehr Pellets verbrannt – subventioniert durch die EU. Dass das so bleibt, dafür sorgt auch die Holzlobby.

Analysis on biomass in National Energy and Climate Plans

EU renewable energy policies consider bioenergy as a renewable form of energy. Today, bioenergy accounts for around 55 percent of renewable energy in the EU, and woody biomass provides the lion share (75%) of bioenergy energy consumption in the EU. This report analyses the use of biomass in National Energy and Climate Plans.

The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios – Limitations and assumptions of commonly used climate-change scenarios in financial services

Scenario modelling is an important component of the actuarial risk-management toolkit. In the context of climate change, scenario modelling enables financial institutions and regulators to investigate the impact of different climate futures, which is important given the challenges we face.

The IFoA has partnered with the University of Exeter to produce this paper demonstrating how a deeper understanding of climate change, including tipping points can improve financial services climate- scenario modelling.

The role of forests in the EU climate policy: are we on the right track?

The European Union (EU) has committed to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This requires a rapidreduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ensuring that any remaining emissions are balanced through CO 2removals. Forests play a crucial role in this plan: they are currently the main option for removing CO 2 from the atmos-phere and additionally, wood use can store carbon durably and help reduce fossil emissions. To stop and reversethe decline of the forest carbon sink, the EU has recently revised the regulation on land use, land-use change and for-estry (LULUCF), and set a target of − 310 Mt CO2e net removals for the LULUCF sector in 2030.

Our findings show that the EU forest sink is quickly developing away from the EU climate targets. Stop-ping and reversing this trend requires rapid implementation of climate-smart forest management, with improvedand more timely monitoring of GHG fluxes. This enhancement is crucial for tracking progress towards the EU’s climatetargets, where the role of forests has become – and is expected to remain – more prominent than ever before.

Burning forest biomass for energy: Not a source of clean energy and harmful to forest ecosystem integrity

The climate crisis is driven mainly by the extensive use of fossil fuels but also by the emissions from widespread deforestation and degradation, plus other factors including cement production (Mackey and Lindenmayer 2014, Masson-Delmotte et al. 2021). In response, a rapid transition toward renewable energy is underway to decarbonize economies globally. Some commentators have proposed that a necessary component of this transition is to burn forest biomass for energy production.

This report argues that a major shift to using forest biomass burning for energy comes with grave risks of highly perverse outcomes, including increased CO2 emissions and negative impacts on forest integrity. A rethink of the role of forest biomass burning for energy in national decarbonization policy is therefore urgently needed. The focus here is on naturally regenerating forests and not plantations.