The UK’s commitment to zero emissions may not be met due to biomass energy
The UK’s commitment to zero emissions may not be met due to biomass energy
- The UK and the European Union are setting targets to completely eliminate carbon emissions by 2050. According to analysts, the plan to achieve this has many flaws, because the United Nations does not take into account the carbon produced by power plants that burn wood pellets.
- If cutting trees and converting wood into pellets for energy is a zero-carbon activity, the process of regrowing trees, if replanted in the same quantity as those cut, takes 50 to 100 years. This means that the wood pellets that are burned today and over the next few decades will add a huge carbon load to the atmosphere.
- That carbon will significantly contribute to global warming, leading to sea level rise, extreme weather conditions and ultimately a climate catastrophe, despite the official UN tally providing a misleading sense of security, leading us to believe we are indeed reducing carbon emissions to stem climate change.
- Unless this biomass problem is addressed, there is a high risk that the objectives of the Paris Agreement will be missed, and that temperatures will rise well beyond the safe limit of 1.5 degrees. At the moment, there is no official plan to address this problem.
The Drax power plants in the UK, one of the largest users of woody biomass for energy production. This facility once burned coal, but now burns pellets and wood chips, thus contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Photo credit: DECCgovuk on VisualHunt / CC BY-ND.
Last June, the UK announced its intention to pass a law setting a national target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The statement came following a directive from the European Commission. the executive arm of the EU, which urges all 28 nations of the Union to set targets to achieve the zero emissions target by 2050.
Given that the national carbon reductions established by the Paris Agreement are voluntary, some climate action advocates welcome the possibility that UK and EU climate change strategies may soon turn into laws.
“As the first major industrialized country to pass legislation to achieve zero emissions by 2050, the UK demonstrates the leadership the world desperately needs,” said Baroness Btyony Worthington, Executive Director of Environmental. Defense Fund Europe. “Other countries can and must also take steps to increase their ambitions.”
At one of three pellet production plants in North Carolina, thousands of stacked logs are waiting to be processed for shipment abroad, mainly to the UK and the EU. Photo courtesy of Dogwood Alliance.
Reduction of emissions – fact or fiction?
This is what the logic – or deception, according to the perspective one adopts – of biomass is: According to biomass advocates (including forest product industry lobbyists), carbon-rich trees can be felled to turn them into pellets and burn them, and then plant new trees to absorb the carbon released by the felling and burning of the trees.
There is a general scientific consensus on the plausibility that this approach is zero impact, but according to critics this is not the case, neither when burning the pellets, nor when planting new trees.
Instead, researchers estimate that it will take 50 to 100 years for trees planted today to absorb current emissions and reach the zero impact goal. And it all depends on whether new trees are actually planted, which is not required by any government to date.
Furthermore, achieving zero emissions in 5 to 10 decades will not help with the rapidly growing climate emergency we are witnessing today; it will not prevent the increase of emissions in the next 12 years, because the combustion of wood pellets contributes to the melting of the ice, to the rise of the sea level, and generates extreme and devastating climatic events, just like the use of fossil fuels.
This biomass flaw “fundamentally undermines our ability to actually reduce emissions and increase the presence of carbon sinks [which are created by maintaining and restoring forests]; it’s a double damage, ”says scientist Mary Booth, director of the Partnership for Policy Integrity in the US, and a leading biomass expert. “If you were to think of a way to undermine progress in the fight against climate change, there is no better way than to cut down the forests and burn them.”
The non-governmental organization “Forests of the World” in Copenhagen gives the example of Denmark: the European country annually emits 45 million tons of carbon, which are counted and declared by the UN. However, another 17 million tonnes of emissions from biomass combustion also occur. These emissions are counted, but are not declared in official UN reports. This means that Denmark emits nearly 30% more carbon than required. Nature knows this.
“For every ton of carbon that nations undertake to reduce, there are at least one or two tons of carbon being emitted under the false claim that burning biomass is carbon neutral,” said Tim Searchinger, biomass expert and researcher at Princeton University. Very few people understand this. And this is a problem that should not be underestimated. “
Images like this, of young hands that contain wood pellets, are strongly promoted by a wood industry that wants to be perceived as “green” by the general public. Recent studies have shown that burning biomass is not zero impact. Scientists and activists have been increasingly alarmed by governments, energy producers and forest products companies continuing to tout outdated claims dating back to the Kyoto Protocol. Meanwhile, the United Nations has not changed its stance, leaving activists with the only option to bring lawsuits, which take time and ensure no results. Photo credit: #ODF on Visual hunt / CC BY.
Believe it again
At the moment, there appears to be no solution in sight. In March, environmentalists filed a lawsuit in Brussels against the EU to resolve the question of the false “carbon neutrality” of pellets. According to experts, it is even unlikely that the plaintiffs will be able to pursue the case before the international court.
“The fact is this,” Gry Bossen told Forests of the World in December during the climate summit in Poland. “Policy makers truly believe that burning trees is carbon neutral. They do not even consider the possibility that it may not be ”.
The reason for this, when the question seems obvious to many, and the threat to the planet is concrete, lies in political habit and convenient acting.
The “carbon neutrality” of the combustion of woody biomass for energy was established in the Kyoto Protocol more than 20 years ago; countries got used to it.
About 40% of the UK’s renewable energy comes from burning biomass in existing power plants, which does not require large new infrastructure. So the UK doesn’t have to invest too much to meet its “green” goals.
Manufacturing of wood pellets is a profitable business, and according to the Environmental Paper Network, demand is expected to increase by 250% in the next decade alone. National and international trade groups are also part of the wood industry that focus on the “bio” of biomass, underlining the zero impact of pellets supported by EU and UK policies and promoting it as a means of sustainable and harmless energy production. ‘environment.
But that is not all. According to Kelsey Perlman and Fern, the scales tip even more in favor of this flaw. To achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050, the European Commission has provided two contradictory paths regarding land use: improving forest management and planting trees and using more woody biomass, i.e. trees, for energy production. . The only possible way to apparently achieve both goals is with plantations for the purpose of biomass production, which does not solve the problem of carbon neutrality in 50 or 100 years.
“We no longer have many options, because we already have a renewable energy directive that allows the combustion of pellets, an activity that will be considered neutral (and therefore not counted) under EU policies,” Perlman said. “It’s a misleading representation of what really needs to be done.”
A largely unknown calamity
Clearly, the UK and EU emission reduction strategies are not limited to energy production. Countries are investing in wind and solar energy. Energy efficiency in buildings and transport is required. Smart and sustainable agriculture is being promoted. Emissions will drop if these strategies are successful, but not fast enough.
Furthermore, the reductions in emissions will not be as decisive as they should be, because large amounts of carbon will enter the atmosphere due to the flaw mentioned above. But as Princeton University’s Searchinger pointed out, most people are unaware of this growing environmental calamity. And because such biomass emissions will be invisible to UN calculations, people will feel deceptively comforted that carbon neutrality numbers will approach zero in the decades to come.
In a conference call to talk about the climate threat in the Caribbean, Simon Stiell, Grenada’s Minister of Climate Resilience, told reporters: “I am impressed with the UK’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Hopefully others developed countries follow their example. “
Stiell said he was unaware of the biomass issue, and promptly pointed out the stakes regarding the accuracy of the emissions count: “As a small developing island state, I can say that any target is set. , it must be meaningful. It’s not about finding loopholes to exploit. The science behind climate change is irrefutable in terms of causes and damage reduction. We should not and cannot cheat, ”Stiell continued.
“That there are results on paper, but in Grenada sea levels continue to rise, winds continue to intensify and people continue to suffer, is unacceptable,” concluded the minister. “There must be full transparency on the actions that can make a difference and which are credible, and on those that are not”.
Justin Catanoso is a regular Mongabay contributor and a journalism professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, United States. Follow him on Twitter @jcatanoso
Banner Image: Pellet makers say they only use scraps from ruined sawmills, branches and trees to make wood pellets. Industry critics argue that companies are cutting more and more trees in forests to meet growing demand. Losing healthy forests means losing natural carbon sinks, biodiversity and protection from floods and storms. Photo credit: USDAgov on Visual Hunt / CC BY .
