500+ experts call on world’s nations to not burn forests to make energy
- Last week, more than 500 top scientists and economists issued a letter
to leaders in the US, EU, Japan, South Korea, and the UK, urging them to stop
harvesting and burning forests as a means of making energy in converted coal
burning power plants.
- The burning of forest biomass to produce electricity has boomed due to
this power source having been tolerated as carbon neutral by the United
Nations, which enables nations to burn forest biomass instead of coal and not
count the emissions in helping them meet their Paris Climate Agreement carbon
reduction targets.
- However, current science says that burning forest biomass is dirtier
than burning coal, and that one of the best ways to curb climate change and
sequester carbon is to allow forests to keep growing. The EU and UK carbon
neutrality designations for forest biomass are erroneous, say the 500 experts
who urge a shift in global policy:
- “Governments must end subsidies… for the burning of wood…. The
European Union needs to stop treating the burning of biomass as carbon
neutral…. Japan needs to stop subsidizing power plants to burn wood. And the
United States needs to avoid treating biomass as carbon neutral or low carbon,”
says the letter.
More than 500 scientists and economists implored world leaders last week
to stop treating as emissions-free the burning of wood from forests to make
energy and heat, and to end subsidies now driving the explosive demand for wood
pellets. Both actions, they write, are causing escalating deforestation in the
Southeast US, Western Canada and Eastern Europe.
The letter was received Feb. 11 by US President Joseph Biden and
European Union President Ursula Von der Leyen, as well as Charles Michel,
president of the European Council, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and
South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The document is expected to soon be sent to
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“We the undersigned scientists and economists commend each of you for
the ambitious goals you have announced… to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,”
the two-page letter begins. “Forest preservation and restoration should be key
tools for achieving this goal and simultaneously helping to address our global
biodiversity crisis.
However, “We urge you not to undermine both climate goals and the
world’s biodiversity by shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning trees to
generate energy.”
In the EU alone, nearly 60% of renewable energy already comes from
forest biomass, amounting to millions of metric tons of wood pellets burned
annually. The United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Denmark are among the leading
consumers of biomass for energy and heat, while Japan and South Korea are now
converting coal-fired power plants to burn wood pellets.
Under the EU’s second Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) — tolerated by
the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement — emissions from burning
forest biomass are not counted at all. This significant carbon accounting
loophole underreports emissions data at a time when global temperatures are
rising fast, causing accelerating drought, devastating storms, destructive
wildfires and sea-level rise nearly everywhere on earth.
Rather than being a carbon neutral climate solution, the scientists
write, cutting forests and burning wood pellets is more polluting than coal,
and “emits more carbon up smokestacks than using fossil fuels,” while
sacrificing the carbon-sequestration capacity of growing trees which is lost to
produce wood pellets.
“Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced,
[burning] wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to
the air as using fossil fuels,” says the letter, refuting the policy and
industry claims of biomass zero emissions.
For its part, the biomass industry claims it uses forest management to
selectively log trees from forests and tree plantations, avoiding clearcutting
and preserving carbon stocks. It also claims that replanted trees quickly
reabsorb the carbon released from burned wood pellets. Both assertions are
undermined by NGO-observed clearcutting and accumulating science showing mature
forests absorb and hold far more carbon than seedlings and young trees.
The scientists offered four mandates: end subsidies and other incentives
that promote biomass for energy and heat; in the EU, stop treating biomass as
carbon neutral under REDII, which falsely overstates emission reductions; in
Japan, stop subsidizing power plants to burn wood; and in the US, stop treating
biomass as carbon neutral as the Biden administration establishes new climate rules
and incentives to curb global warming.
“Government subsidies for burning wood create a double climate problem
because this false solution is replacing real carbon reductions,” says the
letter. “Companies are shifting fossil energy use to wood, which increases
warming, as a substitute for shifting to solar and wind, which would truly
decrease warming.”
Last week’s lobbying effort is the latest on behalf of US, European and
Canadian scientists and economists to highlight robust science demonstrating
the negative environmental impacts of biomass-for-energy to world leaders,
whose national bioenergy policies have helped create a multibillion industry
in wood-pellet production.
A similar letter signed by nearly 800 scientists in 2018 lobbied the EU
to alter its biomass policies, to no avail.
Published: 15 February 2021
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Do not burn forests to make energy!
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