Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Canada’s legislation to implement clean technology and carbon capture tax credits

By Colena Der, Alex Terrell and Emily Wang
Osler.com
December 4, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

The Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023 includes a variety of tax measures that were introduced in Parliament on November 30, 2023, as Bill C-59. …The Government also set out in the 2023 Statement its process and timeline for implementing the remaining clean energy measures, which include… a proposed expansion of the Clean Tech ITC and Clean Electricity ITC to apply to certain equipment that uses waste biomass as a fuel source. …The purpose of this new Biomass Expansion is to reduce biowaste and support new affordable electricity and heat generation in Canada. The Biomass Expansion will capture systems that use “specified waste material” as defined in the Income Tax Regulations to generate electricity or heat. …The expanded eligibility would apply to certain integrated waste biomass systems that use “specified waste material” solely to generate electricity or electricity and heat (i.e., cogeneration systems).

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Countries pour money into new loss and damage fund on the first day of UN climate conference

By John Woodside
The National Observer
November 30, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, International

In what is widely seen as an extraordinary win on the first day of the annual UN climate change negotiations, countries have begun breathing life into a climate finance fund agreed to last year — although the devil is in the details. …“Starting COP28 on a positive note sends a message of hope that the multilateral process can deliver,” said Avinash Persaud, special climate envoy to Barbados. …Following an agreement on how the fund will work Thursday, countries began committing a flood of cash. The United Arab Emirates and Germany each contributed US$100 million, representing the largest contributions from individual countries. The United States, United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union also contributed. Friday morning, Canada announced it would contribute US$11.6 million. In total, over US$400 million was announced. “We must not leave climate-vulnerable developing countries to face these consequences alone,” Minister Steven Guilbeault said. 

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Wildfires could be triple Canada’s industrial emissions. But they’re excluded from the official carbon tally

By Wendy Stueck
The Globe and Mail
December 1, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

As wildfires burned a record 18.5 million hectares across Canada this year, greenhouse gas emissions from those fires also soared to record heights, with preliminary estimates indicating they could be double or even triple the emissions from industrial activity. But when Ottawa releases its annual update on GHGs in 2024, those wildfire emissions won’t be part of the tally. In keeping with international reporting guidelines, Canada’s yearly National Inventory Report highlights human-caused, or anthropogenic, emissions rather than natural disturbances, such as insect outbreaks or wildfires. Wildfire emissions are included in that report, but as an information item, not part of the tally Canada presents when tracking its progress in reducing emissions. But the magnitude of this year’s wildfire emissions – and growing evidence of how climate change and wildfires are connected – is resulting in calls for more transparency in how they are reported and urgent action to try to keep them in check.

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What’s Better For The Climate: A Real Christmas Tree Or A Fake One?

By Naomi Hansen
Chatelaine Magazine
November 23, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

The real-versus-fake Christmas tree debate has raged for years. Fresh trees smell great but can also be messy; artificial trees are less of a hassle but also need year-round storage space. But there’s another, bigger consideration: Which type of tree is the more sustainable option? To get to the core of the issue, we spoke with Megan Quinn at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Lienna Hoeg, Christmas tree specialist at Perennia in Nova Scotia. “Reusing the same artificial Christmas tree year after year sounds more sustainable,” Quinn says. “But it’s important to consider the climate impact of manufacturing and shipping plastic trees around the world.” …“Most fake trees are made with polyvinyl chloride, which is one of the worst plastics we can produce,” Hoeg says. …“Artificial trees are made with plastic and metal and you can’t recycle them,” Hoeg notes.

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Canada To Make Waste Biomass Eligible For 2 Clean Energy Tax Credits

By Erin Voegele
Biomass Magazine
November 27, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

The Government of Canada on Nov. 21 announced plans to allow systems that utilize waste biomass to produce heat and/or electricity to claim the country’s Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit and Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit. …In its announcement, the agency said it is proposing to expand eligibility for the 30 percent Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit to include systems that produce electricity, heat, or both electricity and heat from waste biomass. …Department of Finance Canada is also proposing to expand eligibility for the 15 percent Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit to include systems that produce electricity or both electricity and heat from waste biomass, which would be available as of the date of Budget 2024 for projects that did not begin construction before March 28, 2023. …Drax Group plc released a statement on Nov. 24 commending the Government of Canada on the inclusion.

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Desperation—the Mother of Creativity

By Gordon Murray, Executive Director
Wood Pellet Association of Canada
November 24, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

John Swaan

Do you know it’s been 25 years since our first shipment of pellets from Canada? What might have seemed like a pipe dream is very much a reality. Today, Canada’s pellet sector is a global powerhouse not just in producing pellets but in the global fight against climate change. We’ve taken what was niche and moved mainstream. And so, how did we get here? While it’s the collective efforts of companies, employees, suppliers, customers and others, it all started as the brainchild of one man: John Swaan, also known as the “godfather” of the pellet sector. It began with John’s idea of taking the wood waste residues from Northern B.C. sawmills and, instead of burning the shavings and sawdust in bee-hive burners (as was standard practice at the time), turning them into wood pellets. He planned to sell them in the growing Seattle market.

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The Wood Pellet Association of Canada reflects on pellet past, looks to the future at annual conference

By Maria Church
Canadian Biomass Magazine
November 22, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

The Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s annual conference began with an unusually sentimental note this year: a tribute to the “godfather of wood pellets,” John Swaan. This year marks a quarter century since Swaan orchestrated the world’s first bulk shipment of wood pellets from his B.C. pellet mill to a customer overseas. In opening remarks to the conference, association past-president and senior Drax executive Vaughan Bassett shared a summary of Swaan’s industry origin story, first told by FutureMetrics’ Hannah Campbell. The story was followed by a tribute video in which WPAC executive director Gordon Murray, along with a handful of other partners and friends, shared their thoughts on John’s pioneering role in the pellet industry. An emotional Swaan took to the podium to express his thanks.

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Canada to launch subsidies for carbon capture, clean tech

By Steve Scherer
Reuters
November 20, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, United States

Chrystia Freeland

Canada’s government will present legislation this month to start paying subsidies for carbon capture and net-zero energy projects, a source told Reuters, part of a plan to worth around $20 billion over five years. A long delay in state support for carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects and for equipment used to produce low-carbon energy prompted industry lobbies to warn in September that some C$50 billion worth of investments were at risk if the government did not act soon. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will announce the investment tax credit funding when she presents the Fall Economic Statement to parliament on Tuesday. …Canada is lagging the U.S. on the incentives seen as necessary to spur investment in new, low-carbon technologies. Washington has been offering massive incentives to clean tech companies under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act for well over a year. …Bank of America estimates it has already spurred $132 billion of investment across more than 270 new clean energy projects.

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Canada’s Forest Trust Corporation and EcoSchools Canada Launch a New National Green Fundraising Contest

By Canada’s Forest Trust Corporation
GlobeNewswire
November 20, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

TORONTO — Embarking on a mission to empower Canada’s youth to take action against climate change, EcoSchools Canada and Canada’s Forest Trust Corporation (CFT) announce the launch of The Smart Forest Fundraising Contest. …this nationwide initiative invites schools and students across Canada to engage in a unique green fundraising contest at their schools. Eligible participants could win bursaries and luggage! …this contest provides a platform for schools and students to make a tangible impact on the environment – from planting, preserving and protecting forests to enhancing wildlife habitats and improving air and soil quality. …Canadian youth are anxious about climate change. Providing opportunities to meaningfully contribute to climate action is a key strategy in addressing youth mental health and climate leadership. EcoSchools Canada and CFT are committed to mobilizing millions of youth across Canada. Trees sold through platform will be planted in Canada and CFT guarantees they will be preserved and protected forever.

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Burning trees is not a clean energy option: climate advocates

By Natasha Bulowski
The National Observer
November 16, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

With the annual UN climate conference just around the corner, environmental groups are calling for an end to subsidies that support burning forest biomass to generate electricity. In an open letter… the groups say financial support for the industry is at odds with the federal government’s pledge to phase out subsidies that harm biodiversity. The 24 signatories urge the government to “reverse course and choose true climate solutions” instead of “simply shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning forests for fuel.” …and “reject biomass as a source of renewable energy at COP28.” …Canada’s $1.5-billion Clean Fuels Fund has a funding stream specifically for projects that support the establishment of biomass supply chains, including forest biomass feedstocks. …Biomass for heat or energy and pellet manufacturing are also among the eligible projects for the federal government’s Indigenous Forestry Initiative and Investment in Forest Industry Transformation programs.

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The brutal math of climate foot-dragging

By Barry Saxifrage
The National Observer
November 15, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, International

Canada still has eight years to achieve our 2030 climate target. But rising emissions over the last two years look like they’ve already pushed it out of reach. That’s because we are now at a point where each wasted year makes the remaining task overwhelmingly larger. Have we already run out the clock on climate hope in Canada? Take a look at these five charts and decide for yourself.

  1. The rapidly steepening path to Canada’s 2030 climate target.
  2. How huge our needed cuts are now.
  3. Another way to visualize how improbably huge our emissions reductions need to be.
  4. The paths our peers in the Group of Seven (G7) have taken.
  5. Add in each nation’s 2030 climate targets.

We certainly know what we need to be doing. We just refuse to act — year after year, decade after decade.

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‘Not a crisis’: B.C. Conservatives promise to scrap climate taxes, programs

By Wolf Depner
Victoria News
November 23, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad said a government under his leadership would scrap the provincial carbon tax, low-carbon fuel requirements and other climate-related programs in promising to return $2.8 billion to British Columbians. A Conservative government would also reduce British Columbia’s reliance on imports of food and refined fuel by “dramatically” increasing domestic food production and developing domestic refining capacities. Rustad also promised to have a conversation with British Columbians about using nuclear power. Rustad announced these broad coordinates of his party’s environmental policy Nov. 22 in the provincial legislature. Rustad said his party’s environmental policies will about adaptation and prosperity. …Rustad opened his announcement quoting from Bjorn Lomborg’s book False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts The Poor, And Fails To Fix The Planet. Climate change scientists consider him to lack credibility on the subject.

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Ambitious climate targets too fast, will damage economy, says B.C. business group

By Vaughn Palmer
The Vancouver Sun
November 21, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

George Heyman

VICTORIA — The New Democrats have been forced to defend their CleanBC climate plan because of the discovery that the government’s own modelling says it will hurt the economy. The province’s economic output would take a $28.1 billion hit according to the model, which was keyed to the CleanBC Roadmap for 2030, released earlier this year. The model didn’t get much attention until it was cited in a report last month from the B.C. Business Council. …The New Democrats have disputed the analysis, even though the projected $28.1 billion reduction in gross domestic product was derived from the government’s own economic modelling. Leading the NDP effort to discredit the report is George Heyman… who dismissed the report as misleading, unhelpful and just plain wrong.  He also suggested that if the province were to abandon the emission reduction target for 2030, it would consign B.C. to a future of record-breaking floods and wildfires.

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Canada has to stop responding to climate disasters like surprise emergencies

By Will Greaves and Yvonne Su
Corporate Knights
November 16, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

Two years after devastating wildfires razed 90 per cent of Lytton, B.C., reconstruction is slow and residents remain displaced and angry about it. This summer, 65 per cent of the Northwest Territories’ 46,000 residents evacuated, including almost the entire population of Yellowknife, due to a wildfire. The year 2023, in fact, marked Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season, with nearly 19 million hectares of forest scorched by mid-October. Unfortunately the cycle of disaster and displacement is not new in Canada, according to the Canadian Disaster Database. It indicates 351 disasters took place from 2000-2020, resulting in the displacement of an estimated 569,224 people and almost $20 billion in costs. …Canada’s response to climate-related disasters follows a familiar pattern — local authorities and provincial and territorial resources become overwhelmed, prompting the federal government and the Canadian Armed Forces to intervene. This reliance on the army as a “force of first resort” for domestic emergencies is costly and logistically challenging.

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Poll suggests British Columbians cooling to carbon tax

By Simon Little
Global News
November 13, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

An advocacy group is turning up the heat in the carbon tax debate, touting a new poll it says shows British Columbians are tired of the initiative. The poll, conducted by Innovative Research Group and commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, found 49 per cent of respondents opposed B.C.’s carbon tax, compared to 24 per cent in support….Binda said the poll shows net support for the carbon tax has dropped 28 per cent in the last six months. …Jens Wieting, for the Sierra Club, raised concerns about how the poll’s questions were framed — noting they didn’t factor in the costs of not addressing the climate crisis. The 2021 floods and landslides in B.C. cost more than $17 billion in infrastructure repairs alone, he said, while the cost of fighting the 2023 wildfires neared $1 billion.

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Sicamous bio-heat facility up and running

By Heather Black
The Golden Star
November 15, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

Just in time for cooler temperatures, the Sicamous Community Bio-Heat Facility is up and running. A year-and-a-half after breaking ground on April 22, 2022 (Earth Day), the district announced the facility is fully operational and ready to supply cost-effective alternative energy to properties in the industrial park. … As of Nov. 9, the new service already had one customer who confirmed that it’s working well and has huge improvements over the previous system. As more businesses are developed in the industrial park, the district hopes to connect additional users. The bio-heat facility uses a biomass boiler heating system to repurpose wood waste into fuel to provide energy in the form of hot water between 60 and 80 C at a flow rate of 35 cubic metres per hour.

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Reviewing use of wood chips for heat: Forestry Commission provides P.E.I. government with five recommendations

By Caitlin Coombes
The Hamilton Spectator
November 16, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada East

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The P.E.I. government has begun to review the process of using wood to heat buildings in P.E.I. after the submission of the Forestry Commission’s review of the growing industry. …A review of the Island’s biomass heating industry presented to the government by the Forestry Commission in October prompted the province to begin amending the process surrounding the current environmental impact assessment. Jean-Paul Arsenault, chair of the Forestry Commission… says the commission wants the province to define key environmental terms such as sustainability, biomass fuel and mixed residue so that those definitions can be referenced in legislation and future government activities. “We asked ourselves ‘what does sustainability mean,’ and we couldn’t find a definition anywhere,” Arsenault said. Alex Pratt, biomass operations manager at Wood4Heating agreed with the commission’s review.

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Climate Smart Forestry: A Trend to Watch?

By Anne Clawson, Cascade Advisory
Dovetail Partners Inc.
November 28, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States

We all know that forests can be good for the climate all on their own. In the U.S., forests sequestered the equivalent of 11% percent of total U.S. industrial emissions in 2021. About fifty percent of the weight of dry wood is carbon, which means that trees and long-lived wood products store carbon. But what if there were a way to make forests better for the climate? Making a good thing better is, essentially, the goal of climate smart forestry (CSF). …Yet, the term remains vague in meaning and use. …The U.S. Forest Service is exploring development of a CSF-based approach to managing its lands, which seems like it will incorporate protection of mature and old growth forests. Keeping an eye on various government definitions will be critical, as competing definitions may lead to policy and regulatory conflicts down the road. …FSC and SFI have identified climate outcomes as a potential gap in their certification standards.

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Counting Carbon in US Forests, with David Wear

By Daniel Raimi
Resources Radio Podcast
November 28, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States

David Wear

David Wear at Resources for the Future, talks about the ability of US forests to remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Wear discusses how US forests fit into emissions-reduction efforts, different approaches for estimating the amount of carbon dioxide that US forests can sequester, the implications of using different modeling approaches in designing policy, and the potential of afforestation and forest protection as carbon offsets. …Notable quotes: US forests help offset carbon dioxide emissions: “If we look at the standing inventory of carbon in forests today, it’s about 52 times the annual emissions from the US economy. Now, if we look at how that reservoir of carbon is changing over time, it’s evolving at about half a percent per year.” (3:08). …Federal government may be overestimating how much carbon US lands can sequester (13:47). …Protecting existing forests is an effective strategy (19:29).

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Washington state’s cap-and-trade system may go up in smoke without reforms

By the Editorial Board
The Seattle Times
November 26, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

Washington’s “cap-and-invest” carbon pricing system faces a precarious future. …Voters might well send the auction system up in smoke — and billions of dollars in future proceeds to help decarbonize the state. Washington voters twice before rejected initiatives to tax carbon. The Times editorial board endorsed the 2021 Climate Commitment Act that created cap-and-trade here, with the caveat its efficacy must be closely monitored. Clearly, “cap-and-invest” will need reforms to survive. First, Washington needs to disarm those who want to crash the system. Leaders must find ways to rein in the cost of the market’s allowances, those permits companies must buy to cover their emissions. …Second, Washington needs a bigger carbon market. To that end, the state Ecology Department recently announced a plan to merge Washington’s auctions with the California-Quebec system. …Third, the Legislature should consider whether a limited amount of the allowance proceeds should go back to motorists.

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Program pays landowners to practice sustainable forestry

By Chloe Bennett
Adirondack Explorer
November 20, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

NEW YORK – Environmental organizations are increasingly focusing on landowners to help with the storage of carbon dioxide. A new carbon offset program hit the Adirondacks this month, which offers cash to woodlot owners.  …The vast carbon sinks [in forests] are looked at by many scientists as natural climate solutions that can help reach ambitious climate goals such as those set in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Two organizations zeroing in on family landowners are The American Forest Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, which developed the Family Forest Carbon Program (FFCP) in 2020 with projects in Pennsylvania. Now in New York, the organization pays landowners with at least 30 acres to limit tree harvesting or practice management strategies with the help of foresters. …Upkeep and taxes on family land can be burdensome, leading to its sale. With payments from the FFCP, that land has more potential to stay the way it is. 

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Vermont Natural Forest Products sees potential in pellets

By Christine McGowan, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund
Vermont Biz
November 16, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

Phil Gervais

Phil Gervais and his son Josh operate Vermont Natural Forest Products. Josh Gervais and Matt Gregoire purchased an idle sawmill in Richford, Vermont in 2021. They saw an opportunity to draw on their logging and agriculture experience to process locally harvested, low-grade wood and begin experimenting with production of wood pellets for heating.  “It turns out the sawdust is the perfect precursor product to wood pellets,” said Phil. Within the first year, they had purchased a second pellet machine and were producing and selling 300 tons of wood pellets to their neighbors. The addition of the wood pellets to the product mix meant they could purchase more low-grade wood from local loggers, and offer their neighbors a more price stable alternative to heating with fuel oil. …Phil estimates that they could produce 30,000 to 40,000 tons of pellets a year given the mill capacity and readily available low-grade wood. 

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Carbon credits program more popular as a means to address climate change

By Michael Kitch
The New Hampshire Business Review
November 15, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

Enlistment of the nation’s forests in the effort to mitigate climate change has cast a shadow over the future management of the largest unbroken expanse of privately owned forest in the state and with it the fortunes of the foresters, loggers, sawyers and truckers who earn their livelihood in the woods. The Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest in New Hampshire is 171,500 acres. …When International Paper Company put it on the market in 2001, a coalition of conservation groups, led by the Trust for Public Lands partnering with state and federal agencies, arranged for the state to acquire a conservation easement on the property. …the easement affirms that they “retain the property as an economically viable and sustainable tract of land for the production of timber, plywood and other forest products.” …the effort to address climate change has lent forests another value stemming from their capacity to sequester and store carbon.

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Cedar trees are a symbol of Lebanon but they’re disappearing as the country heats up

By Angele Symons and Kareem Chehayeb
Euronews.green
December 6, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

For Lebanon’s Christians, cedar trees are sacred. These tough evergreens that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. The trees are a symbol of Lebanon, pictured at the centre of the national flag. The iconic trees in the country’s north are far from the clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops along the Lebanon-Israel border in recent weeks against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. …But the long-term survival of the cedar forests is in doubt for another reason. Rising temperatures due to climate change threaten to wipe out biodiversity and scar one of the country’s most iconic heritage sites for its Christians. …The United Nations’ culture agency UNESCO in 1998 listed both the cedar forest and the valley as World Heritage Sites. They’ve become popular destinations for hikers and environmentalists from around the world. 

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Saving the world’s forests through carbon markets isn’t just ‘greenwashing’

By Graham Stuart, Samuel Jinapor and Vickram Bharrat
Politico
December 5, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Voluntary carbon markets have been at the forefront of allegations of greenwashing in recent years. …Carbon credits linked to forest initiatives have attracted particularly strong criticism recently, with companies accused of using these credits as offsets to avoid responsibility for reducing their own emissions. …As a result, confidence in the market has been shaken, choking off a potentially vital financial source for forest countries. To be clear, the problems with forest carbon markets that have hit the front pages are very real. But they aren’t the full story. …We shouldn’t gloss over bad practice. But we also shouldn’t overlook the years of work done by governments to ensure forest carbon transactions can be done with integrity. This includes the creation of the U.N.’s REDD+ framework for “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries.

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Government’s climate change advice recognises the important role of forestry and harvested wood products

The Australian Forest Products Association
December 1, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

The Climate Change Authority’s (CCA) second Annual Progress Report recognises that the ‘carbon stored in trees’ as well as ‘harvested wood products’ helped reduce Australia’s greenhouse emissions in the year to June 2023. Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Chair Joel Fitzgibbon said “We are delighted by the growing recognition that sustainable forest harvesting makes sense. When sustainable practices are followed, forestry not only provides sustainable products for consumers, it also helps us meet our decarbonisation aspirations. “This recognition is in no small way, the result of the excellent work of the AFPA team led by Natasa Sikman, Acting CEO and Climate Change Policy Manager.” Australia’s emissions increased to 467 million tonnes in the year to June 2023, an increase of 4 million tonnes. It is clear more work must be done. AFPA welcomes the recognition that the forestry and forest products sector has an important and greater role to play.

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COP28 galvanizes finance, global unity for forests and ocean

The Daily News Egypt
December 4, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

DUBAI — In a groundbreaking move at the World Climate Action Summit, the COP28 Presidency and its partners unveiled a series of ambitious initiatives with an initial commitment of $1.7bn to simultaneously address climate and biodiversity goals. This landmark announcement signifies a pivotal shift towards recognizing nature as an indispensable ally in the fight against climate change. …The summit witnessed the unveiling of national and regional investment plans and partnerships focused on nature-climate action, demonstrating a collective commitment to the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. …The collective commitment to nature-based solutions demonstrates the growing recognition that protecting and restoring ecosystems is not only essential for environmental health but also a critical component of climate action. As the world prepares for COP28 Nature, Land Use, and Ocean Day on December 9th, the momentum for nature-based solutions continues to build. 

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COP28 will ignore net-zero’s atrocious waste of money

By Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus
The National Post
November 30, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Bjørn Lomborg

The spectacle of another annual climate conference is getting underway. Like Kabuki theater, performative set pieces lead from one to the other: politicians and celebrities arrive by private jets; speakers predict imminent doom; hectoring NGOs cast blame; political negotiations become fraught and inevitably go overtime; and finally: the signing of a new agreement that participants hope and pretend will make a difference. …What won’t be acknowledged… is the awkward reality that while climate change has real costs, climate policy does, too. …The only thing that could avoid this summit being a retread of 27 other failures is if politicians acknowledge the real cost of net zero policy — and vow to dramatically increase green energy R&D. This would help innovate the price of low-carbon energy below that of fossil fuels so every country in the world will want to make the switch. Instead of subsidizing today’s still-inefficient technology… we need to make green technologies genuinely cheaper. 

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The International Sustainable Forestry Coalition to Focus on Central Role of Forest Sector at COP28

BC International Sustainable Forestry Coalition
Businesswire
November 30, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

LONDON — The International Sustainable Forestry Coalition (ISFC) will be representing some of the world’s largest companies engaged in sustainable forestry at COP28, and will be promoting the role of forestry and land-use in the global climate transition. …With greater investment, forestry and land management could contribute up to 25% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net zero. It is widely expected at COP that there will be more focus on the role that sustainably produced timber can play in the built environment, and ISFC will be taking a leading role in these discussions and promoting the expanded contribution of the forestry sector to the decarbonization of the global economy. …The global membership group, representing 12 members managing 10 million hectares of forests across 30 countries, will promote the policy areas and positions it stands for – per its recent position paper.

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Which is better for climate: creating a new forest or a new solar farm?

By Parch Patel
Anthropocene Magazine
November 30, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Installing solar panels in semi-arid regions of the world rather than planting new forests would be better for mitigating climate change, according to researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Earth and planetary scientist Eyal Rotenberg and colleagues looked at afforestation, which is very different from reforestation. …Their results showed that photovoltaic fields break even and begin offering climate change mitigation benefits after around 2.5 years. That is more than fifty times faster than afforestation. Solar power is also about 100 times more efficient in terms of atmospheric carbon reduction. In more humid climates, afforestation caught up to solar fields significantly, but photovoltaics still had a break-even time that is about 20 times faster. Besides, say the researchers, for afforestation to offer climate change benefits, “land area required greatly exceeds availability for tree planting in a sufficient scale.” Forests do offer many other benefits though, the team writes.

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What to Watch for at COP 28 – Forests and Markets

By Steve Zwick
Ecosystem Marketplace
November 29, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Most participants argue that REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, plus enhancements of carbon stocks in developing countries) is included in the Paris Agreement, even though the acronym is nowhere to be found. That’s because of two related Articles: Article 5 recognizes the need to cooperate on forest conservation, while Article 6 recognizes the transfer of mitigation outcomes. The rules for implementing Article 6 weren’t finalized until six years after the landmark Paris Agreement. Agreeing on the practical details remains one of the main objectives of COP28. …Negotiators will consider rules for linking trading systems under 6.2 and nitty gritty issues such as the creation of reporting templates and how countries will submit transactions to the UN for review. Experts from The Gold Standard says there are already 40 bilateral Memorandums of Understanding under Article 6.2, but only three country-to-country deals have been authorized – all involving Switzerland as a buyer.

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Australia to produce ‘carbon-neutral car fuel by 2028’

Australian Associated Press in the Canberra Times
November 27, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Australian forestry management company Forico and US-based energy giant HIF Global have announced an agreement to create Australia’s first plant for carbon-neutral fuel for vehicles. HIF Global plans to produce around 100 million litres of eFuel per year from 2028. The agreement plans to use Forico’s plantation in northwest Tasmania, to recycle about 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year from the residual biomass that the Australian company will supply. This is equivalent to decarbonising 60,000 vehicles per year, HIF Global and Forico said in the statement. “The technology essentially produces methanol,” said Andrew Jacobs, Forico’s head of strategy, at a meeting in Launceston, Tasmania, with foreign journalists. “They take biomass in forestry residues and they extract carbon dioxide through a gasifying process. Then they combine the hydrogen with the carbon dioxide to make methanol,” said Jacobs, emphasising that Australia will be a pioneer in the production of eFuels.

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Carbon credit certifier Verra updates accounting method amid growing criticism

By John Cannon
Mongabay
November 28, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Verra, the world’s largest certifier of carbon credits, has released an update for calculating the climate benefits of the REDD forest conservation projects it certifies. The U.S.-based nonprofit said the changes, released Nov. 27, will bolster the integrity of these credits and buyer confidence by employing the latest science and technology to improve the accuracy of its carbon accounting. …Verra says it had issued more than 1 billion certified carbon credits by 2022 under its verified carbon standard program. However recent criticisms of REDD+ and Verra’s approach to carbon accounting have called into question the veracity of claims that each credit sold actually corresponds to the reduction of an emission of a metric ton of CO2. A recent study in the journal Science found that many projects that generated Verra-certified credits overstated their climate benefits (an assertion that Verra disputes).

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New Greenpeace Report Criticizes Use Of Carbon Offsets In China

By Violet George
Carbon Herald
November 27, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

A new report from Greenpeace East Asia draws attention to the risks associated with carbon offsets in China. China represents a massive market for the accreditation and sale of carbon offset credits, particularly in the light of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. …Li Jiatong, Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based project leader said: “In the past few years, the global carbon offset industry has been riddled with scandals and costly methodological errors.” Li went on to say that carbon offsetting is swiftly enveloping China, even as it is currently in a crisis of confidence around the world. …One of the main subjects of the analysis conducted by Greenpeace are the forestry carbon projects in China, which are said to frequently demonstrate inconsistent levels of quality largely due to a lack of rigorous standards and insufficient data collection. …Greenpeace East Asia is urging authorities to disregard them completely.

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Forest and Wood Products Industry Innovative Three-part Carbon Series

WoodSolutions Australia
November 28, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

As the focus on reducing operational carbon shifts to embodied carbon emissions, estimated to rise to 85% of Australia’s built environment by 2050, the forest and wood products industry stands at the forefront of sustainable solutions. With timber and wood products storing carbon and serving as low-emission materials, the sector plays a crucial role in achieving a ‘net-zero’ built environment. Embracing innovation and investment in low carbon, circular building solutions, and supporting transparent, healthy, low-embodied carbon products are key priorities. The Australian Government’s recent $300 million program, aimed at encouraging mass timber construction, reflects a significant step towards realising these objectives. Forest & Wood Products Australia (FWPA) provides the industry with essential knowledge and guidance, empowering them to actively contribute to the ongoing carbon and sustainability dialogue and identify future opportunities for growth and focus via a new three-part report series.

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Study shows estimates of current land-based emissions vary between models due to differing definitions

By the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Phys.Org
November 22, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

A new study published in Nature demonstrates that estimates of current land-based emissions vary between scientific models and national greenhouse gas inventories due to differing definitions of what qualifies as “managed” land and human-induced, or anthropogenic removals on that land, and shows how global mitigation benchmarks change when accounting for land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) fluxes in scientific models from the national inventory perspective. …Countries have recognized the importance of the LULUCF sector, with 118 of 143 countries including land-based emissions reductions and removals in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and the achievement of its long-term goals. In their study, the research team underscores the necessity to compare like for like when assessing progress towards the Paris Agreement with countries needing to achieve more ambitious climate action when comparing their national starting points with global models.

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The Swedish bioeconomy startups branching out beyond forestry

World Bio Market Insights
November 21, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Sweden has 70% forest cover and is a world-leading producer of forest products. Naturally, its bioeconomy is dominated by wood. In recent years, Sweden’s forestry industry has embarked on eco-modernisation, extending their product range from traditional pulp, timber, and paper into higher-value wood-based chemicals and materials. With close ties to regional and central government, the industry now positions themselves as a key actor in Swedens’ decarbonisation. The country’s ‘green gold’ , industry actors argue, offers a ready substitute for oil plastics, petrochemicals, and mined minerals in sectors as diverse as pharma, personal care, and construction. Many of the standalone biotech startups coming out of Sweden today also depend on wood feedstock from the forestry industry, turning that preeminent pre–industrial material into novel materials. Thanks to them, wood is even entering renewable energy storage, for example through Cellfion’s cellulose nanofibril membranes – wafer thin components made of wood-based biopolymers. 

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Enviva, the world’s largest biomass energy company, is near collapse

By Justin Catanoso
Mongabay
November 20, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

This year has been a financial disaster for Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets for the biomass energy industry. With more than $250 million in losses to date and worsening results expected in the fourth quarter, the once high-flying company’s viability, by its own admission, is in grave doubt. Also in question is where Enviva’s European Union and Asian customers will source the pellets they burn in their converted coal power plants and meet their Paris Agreement carbon emission cuts. To many financial analysts, Enviva’s near collapse this month appears to have happened rapidly and suddenly. But did it? “The problems have been there for years. There are lots of issues, but they stem from fundamental challenges Enviva faces in wood costs and keeping its manufacturing plants operating at full capacity,” a former Enviva maintenance manager told Mongabay. “It’s all coming home to roost in a kind of cumulative way.”

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Plants are likely to absorb more carbon dioxide in a changing climate than we thought—here’s why

By Jürgen Knauer, Western Sydney University
The Conversation
November 17, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Jürgen Knauer

The world’s vegetation has a remarkable ability to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air and store it as biomass. In doing so, plants slow down climate change and global warming. But how will vegetation respond to projected changes in atmospheric CO₂, temperatures and rainfall? Our study, published in Science Advances, shows plants might take up more CO₂ than previously thought. We found climate modelling that best accounted for the processes that sustain plant life consistently predicted the strongest CO₂ uptake. The most complex model predicted up to 20% more than the simplest version. Our findings highlight the resilience of plants, and the importance of planting trees and preserving existing vegetation to slow climate change. While this is good news, it doesn’t let us off the hook in the fight against climate change. The rapid increase in atmospheric CO₂ means we must still cut emissions.

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World on pace to blow past Paris climate targets, UN says

By Benjamin Storrow
Politico.eu
November 20, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Earth is on track for 3 degrees Celsius of warming, and humanity needs to make deep emission cuts this decade to have a chance of fulfilling the goals of the Paris climate agreement, the United Nations said in a report released Monday. The findings come amid record setting global temperatures and as the amount of planet warming pollution in the atmosphere reaches new heights. It also underscores the enormity of the task facing climate negotiators as they prepare for talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, later this month. …The annual emissions gap report highlighted both the progress and challenges facing global climate efforts. A growing number of nations have pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions, and fulfilling those pledges would limit global temperature rise to 2.5 C. Yet few of those pledges “are currently considered credible,” the U.N. said. …The U.N. estimated global CO2 emissions reached 57.4 gigatons in 2022, a new record.

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