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Burning forests for energy isn’t ‘renewable’ –
now the EU must admit it
Greta
Thunberg and others
The EU’s classification of wood fuels is accelerating
the climate crisis. Next week, a key vote can change that
Mon 5 Sep
2022 12.00 BST
Next week
the future of many of the world’s forests will be decided when members of the
European parliament vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive. If the
parliament fails to change the EU’s discredited and harmful renewables policy,
European citizens’ tax money will continue to pay for forests around the globe to
literally go up in smoke every day.
Europe’s
directly elected representatives now have to choose: they can either save the
EU’s “climate targets” with their legislative loopholes or they can begin
saving our climate, because right now, that is not what EU targets are working
towards.
Increasing
volumes of wood pellets and other wood fuels are being imported from outside
the EU to satisfy Europe’s growing appetite for burning forests for energy.
This is an appetite that the existing EU renewable energy directive
incentivises. It does this by classifying forest biomass on paper as
zero-carbon emissions when in reality, burning forest biomass will produce
higher emissions than fossil fuels during the coming decisive decades.
The
interlinked crises of wars and rising food and energy prices underline the
urgent need for policies that enable energy saving and energy efficiency, and
the importance of decarbonising the EU’s energy sector. It should be obvious
that decarbonising can only be done by using non-carbon energy sources. It is
critical to phase out fossil fuels, but the energy sources we replace them with
are just as important.
The EU’s
renewable energy directive should apply solely to actual renewable energy forms
– and forests are not renewable. Forests are ecosystems created by nature that
cannot be replanted. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that
we need to restore and preserve more forest ecosystems – but as internationally
renowned scientists have warned, the EU’s renewable energy directive
incentivises a daily loss of irreplaceable forest ecosystems in favour of the
harmful replanting of new trees.
There is
just not enough time for these tree plantations to regrow to be in line with
the Paris agreement. Forest biomass takes minutes to burn, whereas it takes
anywhere from decades to centuries for the climate and environmentally harmful
tree plantations to resequester the carbon emitted. This equals decades of
carbon debts that we do not have time for.
The same
goes for the burning of what the industry calls forest residues, such as
treetops and branches. Burning any part of the tree means burning carbon. When
forestry residues come from an 80-year-old tree, it will take 80 years for an
equivalent tree to regrow – and this is time we do not have.
For forest
residues to become sustainable end-products, forestry needs to be sustainable
in the first place; but this is not the case today. Most people would assume a
few things about our forests based on what they’ve been told: first, that
Europe has a fair amount of protected forests – and even if not yet as much as
the EU has promised, that protection rates are at least moving in the right
direction. Other common misconceptions are that forestry is carried out
sustainably, that predominantly climate-friendlywood products are produced, and
that only forest residues are burned for energy.
In reality,
none of this is true for the EU today. Strictly protected forests are being
logged daily, half of what is logged in EU forests, not just residues, is
burned as fuel. Certified and supposedly “sustainable” forestry causes
increased emissions, a daily loss of biodiversity and a systematic violation of
indigenous peoples’ rights in Europe’s Arctic regions.
The
policy-driven conversion of forests to environmentally harmful tree plantations
is threatening the way of life of indigenous Sámi communities. Their reindeer
have survived the harsh arctic climate for time immemorial, but after only 60
years of so-called sustainable forestry, 71% of lichen-rich forests crucial for
the survival of the reindeer have already disappeared in Sweden. Sámi
communities are sounding the alarm: they are telling us “the reindeer are
starving”.
Forests
degraded by clearcutting are also more flammable, and in the midst of an
accelerating climate crisis, this is a huge risk. This was clearly demonstrated
by the out-of-control fires that broke out across Europe in the recent extreme
heat, leading to a large-scale release of carbon, further intensifying climate
breakdown.
We need to
drastically reduce all types of greenhouse gas emissions, not only those from
fossil fuels. In addition, and not instead of, we must remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. Instead of trusting non-existent, unreliable and expensive
carbon capture technologies, the best way to do that is to protect and restore
more forests. If we continuously log forests, there will always be more carbon
in the atmosphere than if the forest had remained unlogged. Due to incentivised
logging, the EU is already beginning to see the collapse of its carbon sinks in
countries like Finland and Estonia.
We clearly
need to move towards ecosystems-based forestry and away from today’s forestry
model, which means thinning, clearcuts and the planting of industrial tree stands.
Such a
shift would equal more sustainable rural jobs and lead to more
climate-resilient forests, both of which are vital for a just transition. On
that note, all subsidies given to burn forest biomass must be reallocated to
true renewables such as offshore-wind, solar and geothermal.
Yet as
things stand, the renewable energy directive creates a downward-facing negative
spiral. We can, however, turn this around. Members of the European parliament
have a precious window of opportunity and a duty. They have until 1pm on
Wednesday to table an amendment to remove forest biomass from the renewable
energy directive. They can vote this change through on 13 September. They have
48 hours to do the right thing. If they fail, they will lock in decades of
increased carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and human rights violations.
Greta
Thunberg of Fridays for Future Sweden co-wrote this article with Lina Burnelius
of Protect the Forest Sweden; Sommer Ackerman of Europe Beyond Burning; Sofia
Jannok, Sámi artist and environmental activist; Ida Korhonen of Luonto-Liitto,
Finland; Janne Hirvasvuopio, Sámi and environmental activist; Jan Saijets, Sámi
activist; Fenna Swart of Comite Schone Lucht, Netherlands; and Anne-Sofie
Sadolin Henningsen of Forests of the World, Denmark
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