Thread by @marpinoir

EU Member States are negotiating renewable energy incentives these days, and in particular whether they should end current market incentives for using wood in the energy sector, as these are driving the destruction of forests in Europe and abroad. A thread. #biomass

Two recent investigations showed that even primary forests are crushed into wood pellets. Billions of euros in public funds reward energy companies for burning wood, which creates an enormous incentive to log more.
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

And a new criminal case in Italy just shows how bad things can go: 5 biomass plants have been producing electricity out of wood mixed with waste, asphalt… and never double-checked their suppliers’ paperwork stating everything was cool and sustainable!
ilfattoquotidiano.it/2022/10/05/rif…

Which is sadly consistent with what we knew already: the “sustainability criteria” for forest biomass are not even worth the paper on which they’re printed. Pretty much anything goes. fern.org/publications-i…

So the EU Parliament proposing to end all market incentives for primary woody biomass (PWB – wood extracted directly from forests) last month is important, at least in principle. This is what is now on the EU negotiation table. fern.org/publications-i…

But how much do EU Member states rely on primary woody biomass to reach their renewable energy targets? We know they’re in massively different situations, but the figures are not public. Here’s an attempt I made at a *very rough* estimate.

On average, the figure is 19.6%. But this hides wide discrepancies. PWB represents more than 50% the ‘renewable’ energy used by Hungary & Bulgaria. Most countries in Central & Eastern Europe declare using a 25 to 45 per cent proportion of PWB. Solar & wind remain marginal there.

On the other hand, countries like Sweden, Spain, Austria or Germany get less than 13% of the "renewable" energy they use from primary woody biomass. France, Italy or Finland use around 20 per cent. Islands like Ireland, Malta and Cyprus hardly use any.

Wood burning, overall, still remains Europe's largest source of "renewable" energy. 41% on average. Wood burning remains by far the largest use of wood in Europe today, at the expense of forests, the climate, public health... and other wood-using sectors.

Sources : European Joint Research Centre Wood Resource Balances, Eurostat SHARES project
knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/…
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/e…

PS. Why very rough? These figures come from Member States’ 2017 voluntary reporting of “direct” v. “indirect” wood in their energy sector, two (Romania, Lithuania) did not report that. I arbitrarily gave them a 50% share of PWB in their overall solid biomass use.

Moreover, 10-15% of the wood used in the energy sector is of unknown provenance, and the proportion has actually increased since biomass market incentives were introduced. This is huge, and begs for more traceability in the forestry and bioenergy sectors.

PPS. With the current sky-high energy prices, discontinuing public subsidies for biomass is not very controversial: energy companies are making profits already without them! The more delicate point is about capping the counting of energy from PWB towards renewable energy targets.

These targets are going to be increased a lot, and Member States dislike making meeting these more difficult. But last time only France didn't meet its renewables targets and nothing happened but bad press. Failing climate targets, on the other hand, has very real consequences!

One way forward could be setting up accounting caps & phase-out schedules per groups of countries in comparable situations: easier to agree on & fairer. Negotiators should anyway remember that paying energy companies to burn forests is worsening both the climate & energy crisis.

See also:

https://twitter.com/EASACnews/status/1583003064092749824