What’s the problem with bioenergy?
The EU’s carbon sink has been in freefall for more than a decade, undermining the EU’s own climate goals, because of the excessive logging pressure, itself largely driven by incentives for biomass energy.
By channelling billions of Euros in government support to energy companies burning wood, EU renewable energy policy is incentivising forest destruction and worsening the climate and biodiversity crises.
It’s long past time to change.
Fern supports EU efforts to tackle the climate crisis by decarbonising energy infrastructure, but government support schemes are presently doing more harm than good. Incentives should be offered for energy saving infrastructure such as insulation; the transition to continuous cover management of forests; and restricted to low carbon energy sources like solar or wind; but, instead, billions are being poured into one of the least efficient and most polluting energy sources available - burning wood.
The knock on effects are jaw-dropping. Forests that were previously un-commercially viable to cut are now facing with the saw, leaving clear-cut devastation in its wake, meaning forests are less able to remove and store carbon.
All of this is paid for by taxes - used to make destruction financially viable.
Industry advocates claim that biomass pollution is reabsorbed by new plant growth, but they do not mention the damage to habitats or how long it takes for trees to regrow – at a time when urgent greenhouse gas reductions are paramount. There is also the real risk that forests will not grow back, or be replaced with plantations unable to face the rigours of the climate crisis.
Fern is therefore calling for an end to all biomass subsidies.
Scientists are clear that there is no safe level of wood smoke exposure, even in rural areas. The lung cancer risk of heating your home with wood is well known, and most EU residents would stop heating their homes with wood if they were offered a better alternative. They must therefore be supported to switch to less polluting heating sources, not penalised where they cannot. This could be funded by the money saved from ending biomass subsidies.
Cutting subsidies would also reduce over-demand for wood. This would reduce pressure on forests and benefit businesses who buy wood for material uses and whose costs have rocketed due to market distortion caused by biomass incentives. These industries (including wood panels, chemicals and furniture producers) don’t need subsidies to operate – they just need a level playing field.
Fern therefore calls on the EU and Member States to exclude energy from wood burning from the list of renewable energy sources, which will exclude it from counting towards renewable energy targets and therefore end its eligibility for government support.
Fern’s work on bioenergy
What do Fern and our partners want?
To achieve socially and environmentally friendly EU climate and energy policies, the EU must stop subsidising the burning of forest biomass and exclude bioenergy from counting towards renewable energy targets.
What are we doing?
Fern is helping coordinate individuals and organisations from around the world that are campaigning to reduce reliance on forest biomass for energy. Our strategy is simple: support NGOs and experts to battle corporate lobbyists and remove the market and government incentives for burning biomass, so as to reduce the overall amount of wood burned for energy to pre-2009 levels.
What is Bioenergy?
What is Bioenergy?
Bioenergy is the combination of the terms biomass and energy.
Bioenergy is gas, electricity or heat that comes from renewable sources, such as plant matter or animal waste.
This is known as biomass.
Biomass contains energy stored from the sun. This energy is absorbed during the photosynthesis process.
When biomass is burned, its chemical energy is released as heat.
Biomass is often burned on a local scale to heat homes and to provide heat for cooking (mainly in tropical countries), and as such is an important part of many peoples’ livelihoods.
However, bioenergy is more often spoken about in terms of the large-scale and intensive harvesting and burning of wood from forests in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Today, most biomass which is burnt for energy comes from trees, and more worryingly, from forests.
What is BioEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)?
The climate emergency is on the verge of becoming a climate crisis. Years of inaction have meant that climate scientists are no longer just discussing the need to reduce emissions, they are also talking about having to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Sometimes known as negative emissions, carbon dioxide removals are now at the centre of the climate conversation.
Governments are responding by looking for technological fixes, and one of the most often discussed is Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). But the belief that BECCS would remove emissions is based on the faulty assumption that bioenergy is carbon neutral. This is not the case. BECCS would also have massive social, environmental and economic costs. It offers the false promise of a get-out clause and must not be allowed to distract from the urgent need to stop burning fossil fuels and to protect and restore forests, soils and other ecosystems.
What are the alternatives to bioenergy and BECCS?
The answers are surprisingly simple.
Instead of burning forests for energy, we can reduce the amounts of energy we use and invest in and subsidise local, real renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar.
The best way to achieve negative emissions is to protect and restore natural forests. This also benefits biodiversity, the climate and people. Unlike BECCS, the climate benefits of restoring natural forests are tried and tested. Forests already store large quantities of carbon and they have been sequestering carbon for hundreds of millions of years. If protected and managed with the full inclusion of the people that live in and depend upon them, they can help us achieve the targets of Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. But first we must reject a heavy reliance on negative emissions and rapidly reduce emissions from fossil fuels to zero, stop destroying ecosystems, and reduce the overconsumption of natural resources.
What are the next steps?
Although the autumn 2023 RED review did not solve the policy’s fundamental problems, it tightened the sustainability criteria applicable to biomass installations. Member States also gained the power to implement this policy in a more climate-friendly way. We strongly encourage them to use this opportunity to transpose this policy so that it protects forests, the climate, public health and biodiversity. They have until June 2025 to do this, and we have published a guide to explain how.
