Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.”

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.

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.

In related coverage:

• CBC News: Shift away from fossil fuels now or face nearly 3 C warming
• CNN News: Countries’ emissions plans put the world ‘wildly off track’

Protecting forests globally could vastly increase the amount of carbon they sequester, a new study finds, but given our current emissions track, does it really matter? For Thomas Crowther, professor at ETH Zurich and an author of the assessment, the answer is a resounding yes. …But for others, calculating the hypothetical carbon storage potential of global forests is more an academic exercise than a useful framework for forest management. Martin Lukac, a forester and professor of ecosystem science at University of Reading considers forest carbon potential calculations like these “dangerous,” warning they “distract from the main challenge and offer false hope.” In 2019 Crowther produced a study on how many trees the Earth could support, where to plant them and how much carbon they could store. That work caused a firestorm of criticism, with experts unpicking everything from its modeling to the claim that reforestation was the “best” solution available.

The Amazon, which holds the world’s biggest river, rainforest and a fifth of its fresh water — is running dry. The region is entering its fifth month of a drought that has been particularly punishing in the northern reaches of the rainforest. …The Rio Negro, a northern Amazon tributary, fell to the lowest levels in its recorded history last month. Wildfires have advanced where waterways have retreated. …The effects of the drought are rippling through the forest. …This year’s disaster follows damaging droughts in 2005, 2010, 2015, 2016 and 2020. Each successive blow — combined with ongoing deforestation and rising temperatures — chips away at the Amazon’s ability to bounce back and puts it closer to a tipping point at which parts of the rainforest could permanently transform into a savanna. …Big droughts used to rarely hit the Amazon — about once every 20 years or so, according to Nobre. But, due to climate change, they’ve come more frequently.