The European Commission published additional guidance documents and an international cooperation framework to support global stakeholders, Member States and third countries in their preparations for the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation. Given feedback received about their state of preparations, the Commission also proposes to give concerned parties additional time to prepare. If approved by the European Parliament and the Council, it would make the law applicable on 30 December 2025 for large companies and 30 June 2026 for micro- and small enterprises. Since all the implementation tools are technically ready, the extra 12 months can serve as a phasing-in period to ensure proper and effective implementation. …The Commission considers that a 12-month additional time to phase in the system is a balanced solution to support operators around the world in securing a smooth implementation from the start. ….The extension proposal in no way puts into question the objectives or the substance of the law.
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The EU is launching an anti-dumping investigation into cheap plywood imports after complaints by the bloc’s domestic producers, opening another front in its trade conflict with China. EU producers say there has been a surge in cheap hardwood plywood coming from China, much of which they believe originates in Russia. Brussels banned Russian wood imports after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. …“This investigation is crucial to protect the entire EU hardwood plywood value chain,” said the Greenwood Consortium, which represents forest owners, loggers and suppliers to producers. “Unfairly priced Chinese imports — now apparently also using cheap conflict Russian timber — threaten the survival of many European businesses and jobs.” …The main EU producers are in Poland, Finland, France and the Baltic states. The EU has already put tariffs on birch plywood imports from Kazakhstan and Turkey after finding they included some Russian content. 
The European Central Bank on Thursday cut its key interest rate to 3.25%, in its third quarter-percentage-point reduction of the year. The move at the October meeting had been fully priced by markets after policymakers flagged reduced inflation risks and a weakening growth outlook. The ECB’s Governing Council called the process of disinflation “well on track” in its most optimistic statement in the current cycle. “The inflation outlook is also affected by recent downside surprises in indicators of economic activity,” it said. Headline price rises in the euro area eased to 1.8% in September, coming in below the central bank’s 2% target for the first time in three years. The ECB once again forecast that inflation would “rise in the coming months, before declining to target in the course of next year.” It is the first time the ECB has reduced rates at consecutive meetings since December 2011.
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Ireland’s cool summers and frequent showers provide the ideal conditions for growing coniferous trees at a faster rate than in other European countries. …With significant steps being taken to reduce Ireland’s carbon footprint and with challenging carbon reduction targets in place, there is an accelerating need to build more with Irish wood to help decarbonise our built environment and support the delivery of Ireland’s climate targets. …our climate positions us uniquely to grow the softwood required for our low-carbon homes of the future. Building with wood helps to reduce carbon emissions, and it also supports local jobs and the local economy. …Conifer trees can mature in Ireland in just 35 years. It takes twice that time in other parts of Europe. …Increased adoption of wood in construction not only supports the delivery of climate action targets but would also accelerate the delivery of sustainable new homes, a critical imperative for Irish society.
The European Union’s chief negotiator on a United Nations compact to reverse biodiversity loss denies postponement of anti-deforestation law undermines credibility just weeks ahead of crunch summit in Colombia. The European Commission’s proposal to delay implementation of the Deforestation Regulation will not undermine the EU’s position in upcoming UN biodiversity talks, its lead negotiator has claimed, saying the postponement was a recognition that further preparatory work with trading partners was needed. The 16th conference of parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity later this month will be the first since the landmark COP15 in Montreal two years ago that yielded an agreement to place 30% of land and sea under conservation status by 2030. Environmental groups were outraged when the EU yielded to pressure for a delay to the law, which requires proof that no forests were cleared in the production of a range of goods from coffee to beef and timber.
Given feedback from international partners about their state of preparations, the European Commission announced October 2 that it’s proposing to delay launching the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). 
On 10 October 2024, the European Parliament’s (EP) Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) fast-tracked the European Commission’s (EC) 
BRASILIA – The government of the Brazilian state of Para in the Amazon will consult Indigenous communities on how they will benefit from the future sale of carbon offset credits that U.S. companies have agreed to buy to try to protect the rainforest. In a statement, the Para government’s environmental secretariat Semas said it “will begin a new phase of dialogue” with Indigenous peoples and other traditional communities in the rainforest. Scientists say preserving the Amazon rainforest is vital to combating global warming. Amazon.com Inc, and a group of companies agreed last month in New York to buy carbon credits in a deal valued at $180 million through the LEAF Coalition conservation initiative, which it helped set up in 2021 with other firms and governments, including the United States and United Kingdom. …But last week, 38 Indigenous and community organizations signed a public letter saying they had not been consulted properly.
Drax found that it was “highly likely” to have burnt wood sourced from old forest areas in Canada deemed to be environmentally important, according to internal emails, as the UK’s biggest biomass power station operator battled to maintain its green credentials. The wood received by pellet plants owned by Drax from its suppliers in British Columbia was traced to areas local authorities classed as ecologically significant, as well as “high-risk” private land. While the material was not illegal to use, many environmental experts said old-growth woods and forests should be protected given their ecological benefits, including absorbing and storing atmospheric carbon for centuries. A lengthy investigation by Ofgem into its reporting concluded recently after the UK regulator cleared it of a deliberate breach, and Drax agreed to pay a penalty of £25mn into a voluntary scheme for failing to record adequate data about the wood it imported.
A plan by the British government to burn biomass imported from countries including North Korea has been described as “bonkers”. A bioenergy resource model calculates that only a big expansion in the import of energy crops and wood from a surprising list of nations would satisfy the UK’s plan to meet net zero. …About a third of the biomass used in the UK is imported. In 2021, about 76% from North America and 18% from the EU. But there is not enough wood in these regions to supply the large expansion that the government is banking on. The resource model sets out potential sources of bioenergy. Only the most ambitious scenario outlined would theoretically provide enough biomass to meet this demand, and it involves a huge increase in imports. …Serious concerns have been raised about the affect of large-scale use of biomass on biodiversity, air quality, agriculture and soil health in the UK and abroad.
LISBON, Portugal — For three days in mid-September, wildfires rapidly tore through parts of Portugal… cutting off the top half of the country. …Few people in Europe and the US would have realized that some of their everyday products may have played a role in making these fires worse. Certain toilet paper, tissue and office paper brands are made with materials from eucalyptus trees, a non-native species to Portugal. The eucalyptus globulus is an ideal tree for commercial cultivation because it’s faster-growing, has a larger amount of fiber and produces more pulp than most other species. The problem is eucalyptus trees are particularly flammable. …Proportional to its size, Portugal has more eucalyptus than any country in the world. But in California, the eucalyptus tree has been naturalized. …A debate over the role of eucalyptus in wildfires is brewing, with some studies showing they have little influence in making blazes worse.
Forests with a greater diversity of trees are more productive—potentially leading to greater efficiency in capturing planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new study reveals. Researchers found that trees that grow quickly, and capture carbon faster, tend to be smaller and have shorter lifespans, leading to lower carbon storage and faster release back into the atmosphere. Slower growing species live longer and grow larger, tending to capture more atmospheric carbon—particularly in the setting of more diverse forests. Analyzing 3.2 million measurements from 1,127 species of trees across the Americas—from southern Brazil to northern Canada—an international team of experts mapped life expectancies for trees ranging from 1.3 to 3,195 years. …Co-author Dr. Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, Brazilian researcher based at the University of Birmingham, commented, “Tree growth and lifespan trade-offs are crucial for the planet’s carbon balance.
Wildfires are burning through the carbon budget that humans have allocated themselves to limit global heating, a study shows. The authors said this accelerating trend was approaching – and may have already breached – a “critical temperature threshold” after which fires cause significant shifts in tree cover and carbon storage. …Forests are going up in smoke in Brazil, the US, Greece, Portugal and even the Arctic Circle amid the Earth’s two hottest years in recorded history. Each fire has a double impact on the global climate: first, by emitting carbon from the burned trees, and second, by reducing the capacity of forests to absorb carbon dioxide. …Other research showed the Amazon is undergoing a “critical slowing down”, with more than a third of the rainforest struggling to recover from drought after four supposedly “one-in-a-century” dry spells in less than 20 years. These compounding impacts are turning forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources.