• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Jurisdictions Asia

Deforestation Triggered by EU Renewables Directive Could Destroy Global Carbon Sinks

September 24, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

Dikshajhingan/Wikimedia Commons

Dikshajhingan/Wikimedia Commons

13
SHARES
 

The European Union’s new renewable energy directive could trigger a new wave of deforestation, representing a grave threat to the world’s carbon sinks, by counting the burning of whole trees to produce energy as a carbon-neutral activity, a group of eight academics warns in the journal Nature Communications.

“This amounts to sawing off the branch on which humanity sits,” said Université Catholique de Louvain climate scientist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a co-author of the commentary and former vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He told The Guardian the risk of the directive encouraging tree clearances and the destruction of global carbon sinks was now “extremely high”.

Over the last decade, “Europe has expanded its use of wood harvested to burn directly for energy, much from U.S. and Canadian forests in the form of wood pellets,” the commentary states. “Contrary to repeated claims, almost 90% of these wood pellets come from the main stems of trees, mostly of pulpwood quality, or from sawdust otherwise used for wood products.”

While “makers of wood products have for decades generated electricity and heat from wood process wastes, which still supply the bulk of Europe’s forest-based bioenergy,” it states, “harvesting additional wood just for burning is likely to increase carbon in the atmosphere for decades to centuries.”

The authors explain that, “typically, around one-third or more of each harvested tree is contained in roots and small branches that are properly left in the forest to protect soils, but that decompose and release carbon. Wood that reaches a power plant can displace fossil emissions, but per kWh of electricity typically emits 1.5 times the CO2 of coal and 3 times the CO2 of natural gas because of wood’s carbon bonds, water content, and lower burning temperature (and pelletizing wood provides no net advantages).”

Yet more than two dozen countries including Indonesia and Brazil promised to increase their energy generation from wood at last year’s United Nations climate conference in Bonn, The Guardian notes. Unless new forest conservation measures are put in place, the new EU directive as it is currently drafted “will create a large demand for wood that will contribute to destroying those forests,” van Ypersele said. “It is a catastrophe in the making.”

Bioenergy Europe spokesperson Nino Aveni said new saplings could right the carbon imbalance from burning mature trees in “years to decades,” The Guardian reports. “Sustainability criteria are a guarantee that existing forest protection measures are applied to wood used for bioenergy production,” he said. “EU member states have already strong forest policies in place.”

But an EU official said the wood-burning provision is “a critical flaw” in the renewables directive, adding that, if anything, the new paper underestimates the problem. The directive will trigger “a race to the bottom, because there is no inherent limit to the potential over-harvesting,” the unnamed source told Guardian correspondent Arthur Neslen. “There is a high risk that it will involve the possibility of increasing emissions, with no possibility of any greenhouse gas savings at all.”

The official added that EU decision-makers just don’t understand the magnitude of the problem. “Partly that is because of wishful thinking. Partly it is so fundamentally wrong that most people would not believe it could be as wrong as it is.”



in Asia, Bioenergy, Brazil, COP Conferences, Forests & Deforestation, International Agencies & Studies, UK & Europe

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr
International Agencies & Studies

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
93
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons
Jobs & Training

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
36
/PxFul
Food Security

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
92

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
312
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
193
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
164
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
72

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
93
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
36
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
92
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
48
Next Post
Wikimedia Commons

OPEC Expects Oil to Draw $11 Trillion in Investment Through 2040

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}