Region Archives: International

A forest twice the size of Greater London would need to be planted in the UK to cancel out the extra emissions from the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports, Carbon Brief analysis reveals. New runaways at these airports surrounding London would result in cumulative emissions of around 92m tonnes of extra carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2050, if the number of flights increases in line with their operating company targets. For example, offsetting these emissions would require more than 300,000 hectares of trees to be planted within just a few years. This equates to all the trees planted in the UK since 2000… Reeves has stressed that “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) and electric planes could help to offset these emissions. However, such technologies are still in the early stages of deployment and previous Carbon Brief analysis suggests the role of SAFs in achieving net-zero may be limited.

Drax divides opinion. Some recognise the critically important role we play in generating renewable power which keeps the lights on for millions. Others argue that we are not ‘green enough’ and need to do more to demonstrate that we are part of the solution to tackling the existential threat of climate change. …Since the Ukrainian conflict and the ongoing uncertainty around investments needed to achieve net zero, energy has overtaken many other sectors in he controversy stakes. We recognise that some people have concerns about our operations. …this year will see us make changes to further integrate sustainability across our operations. We are … taking positive action to provide greater transparency about our plans, processes and operations.  We are developing this new approach in consultation with experts to ensure that we’re on the right path to being climate, nature and people positive.

The Congo Basin is home to the largest expanse of intact tropical forest on Earth, covering approximately 3.7 million square kilometres. It retains vast areas of undisturbed forest – like the 108,000 square kilometres in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an area about the size of Iceland. The Amazon has steadily lost its carbon storage potential, flipping from a sink to a net emitter in 2021. But, the Congo Basin is still functioning effectively as a carbon sink, a crucial planetary buffer limiting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Congo Basin is currently the largest and healthiest tropical forest carbon sink in the world, sequestering 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually with a peat swamp that stores 29 billion tonnes of carbon – equivalent to about three years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK should stop burning wood to generate power because it is not needed to meet the government’s target of decarbonising the electricity sector by 2030, according to analysis. Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, is expected to make a decision soon on whether to allow billions of pounds in new public subsidies for biomass burning, despite fierce opposition from green groups. Campaigners have amassed years of evidence of how much destruction burning wood causes to forests and wildlife around the world, and argue that it is not “carbon neutral” because regrowing trees takes decades to make up for the carbon emitted when burned. But ministers were thought to be reluctant to let go of the capacity for baseload power generation that biomass represents. Biomass makes up roughly 4% of the UK’s total electricity generation, and about 8% of “green” power generation, most of it coming from Drax.

See the analysis in E3G: The UK’s clean power mission: Delivering the prize

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The South Korean government will reduce subsidies for biomass energy after rising domestic and international criticism of its link to deforestation. Environmental activists generally applauded the reforms but criticized loopholes and slow timelines for phasing out the subsidies. … Biomass power … is growing globally as countries accelerate their transition to use cleaner energy — even though many scientists and environmentalists see it as problematic. In South Korea, it’s the second-largest source of renewable energy. South Korea has subsidized biomass energy with millions of dollars for more than a decade via their renewable energy certificates program. South Korea’s biomass power industry has structured its business model around importing large volumes of wood pellets at lower prices from forest-rich nations. …Experts said South Korea’s policy change could signal a shift in how countries consider and incorporate biomass as part of their own energy transitions.

Forests in Finland were a source of emissions in 2023 because trees did not sequester enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to offset emissions from the soil, indicate preliminary data from the greenhouse gas inventory released on Wednesday by Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). The data suggest that forests added 1.12 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents to the atmosphere in 2023, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of net emissions from the land-use sector. Luke estimates based on the latest data that forests became a source of emissions in 2021. The entire land-use sector, meanwhile, turned from a sink into an emitter in 2018 as a result of increasing logging, growing emissions from forested peatlands and contraction of the sink of mineral soil. The carbon sink of the sector had begun to contract in 2010.

A research team led by the University of Oxford has carried out the most comprehensive assessment to date of how logging and conversion to oil palm plantations affect tropical forest ecosystems. The results demonstrate that these have significantly different and cumulative environmental impacts – and that logged forests should not be immediately ‘written off’ for conversion to oil palm plantations. The findings have been published in Science… In general, logging mostly impacted factors associated with forest structure and environment. Since logging in the tropics is generally selective – focusing on trees with particular commercial qualities – even low levels of logging alter the system. Converting these logged forests to oil palm plantations, however, has greater impacts on biodiversity that go beyond those of logging alone.