Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate Library

Welcome to the Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate library. It has been brought together by the Forest, Climate and Biomass Action Network of the Environmental Paper Network. We want activists, communities, scholars – anyone who’s interested in forest biomass issues – to be able to find all the key resources in one place. So we’ve gathered together key resources that present case studies and explain the science behind biomass energy and its impacts on forests and climate.

If you have any suggestions for resources we should have in this library or any comments about it, please contact us. You may also find our Frequently Asked Questions helpful.

More than money: Development banks must strengthen human rights safeguards

Each year, public development banks make vital decisions on the financing of hundreds of development cooperation projects and business activities around the world in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. At the 2022 Finance in Common Summit in Abidjan, five public development banks issued a statement in which they recognised their ‘special role and responsibility in raising the stakes of the human rights-based approach to development’.

Author: Anna Roggenbuck

Date: 2024

Location: Worldwide

Language: English

Type of resource: Report

Topics: Biomass finance

Biochar: A critical perspective

In 2011, Biofuelwatch published a comprehensive report, “Biochar: a critical review of science and policy”. In 2020, we provided an
update to that report. Given the proliferation of initiatives to develop commercial-scale biochar and burgeoning policy and financial support, we
feel compelled to provide this more recent update in 2024.

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Organization: Biofuelwatch

Author: Almuth Ernsting

Date: 2024

Location: Worldwide

Language: English

Type of resource: Report

Topics: Climate, Policy

Carbon carrying capacity in primary forests shows potential for mitigation achieving the European Green Deal 2030 target

Estimated carbon gain by protecting, restoring and ongoing growth of existing forests equated to 309 megatons carbon dioxide equivalents per year, additional to, and higher than, the current forest sink, and comparable to the Green Deal 2030 target for carbon dioxide removals.

What does the future hold? Rural communities discuss European forests and how to protect them

Ahead of upcoming European Parliament elections, Fern commissioned the insight firm GlobeScan to conducta deep listening exercise to learn from rural and forest-livelihoods communities in Czechia, France, Germany and Poland. The outcomes paint a nuanced picture. This briefing, both a summary of and a response to the final GlobeScan report, lists the most stimulating take-aways and what they could mean for the next EU legislative term. They offer insights for future EU decisions, debates, and policies related to forests, but also for broader debates on EU policy-making.

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Organization: Fern

Author: Fern

Date: 2024

Location: Europe

Language: English

Type of resource: Briefing

Topics: Policy

Drax’s pellet mills violated environmental law 189 times in Canada

The UK’s largest power station began importing wood from Canadian pellet plants 12 years ago. The mills, bought by Drax Group in 2021 & 2022, have breached environmental regulations 189 times.

Latest evidence on the destructive climate and health impact of biomass subsidies and wood burning

The European Environment Agency (EEA) released (March 2024) its yearly overview of renewable energy deployment in the EU for 2022: 23% of the energy consumed in the EU during 2022 came from renewable sources, an increase driven mainly by strong growth in the solar and wind sectors. But solid biomass – essentially, wood burning – still represented 40% of the renewables mix that year, a proportion that decreases only slowly. In absolute terms, the biomass sector continues to grow.

New Report Shows Wood Pellets from Drax’s U.S. Mills Increase Carbon Emissions During the Timeframe Necessary to Address Climate Change

A new report by Spatial Informatics Group, LLC (SIG), commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the National Wildlife Federation, takes a closer look at the carbon profile of wood pellets produced at Drax’s three U.S. wood pellet mills. Building on previous studies, SIG conducted a carbon life-cycle assessment tailored to Drax’s presumed wood sourcing for these mills. SIG found that the accumulated emissions of burning wood pellets from these mills to produce electricity in the UK increases carbon pollution in the atmosphere for more than 40 years, well beyond the timeframe identified by the IPCC as critical for carbon reduction.

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Organization: Southern Environmental Law Center

Author: Southern Environmental Law Center

Date: 2024

Location: North America, United States

Language: English

Type of resource: Fact Sheet

Topics: Carbon accounting, Climate

BORNEO FOREST’S SILENT SACRIFICE: Japan’s Energy Transition and the Shadow of Indonesia Illegal Biomass Trade

The wood chips and wood pellets producon from Indonesia's largest Energy Forest Plantaon (HTE) concession or PT Koringa Hutani is 100% exported to supply Japan's biomass demand. A glaring discrepancy in the mber trade data between Indonesia and Japan from 2012 to 2023 revealed a potential gap in illegal practices in the wood-based biomass supply chain.

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Organization: CELIOS (Center of Economic and Law Studies)

Author: Fiorenna Refani Viky Arthiando Putra

Date: 2024

Location: Asia, Indonesia, Japan

Language: English

Type of resource: Report

Topics: Global South

Shareholder Action: A cost-effective means of influencing corporate investment and policy decisions for commercial scale forest bioenergy

This document aims to show why purchasing shares in companies that are involved in the forest bioenergy sector can provide a cheap and highly effective way of getting your arguments against forest bioenergy heard in the corporate world that funds so much of the sector.

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Organization: Wild Europe

Author: Wild Europe

Date: 2024

Location: Worldwide

Type of resource: Briefing

Topics: Biomass finance