The Forest Stewardship Council – US released a report that found evidence that FSC-certified forests in the US and Canada store more carbon when compared to forests managed with common practices, showing the positive climate impact of the forest management practices associated with FSC certification. …FSC engaged SCS Global Services to measure the amount of carbon stored by US and Canadian forests managed using both FSC and common practices. The studies included a mixed pine forest, a mixed boreal forest, and a redwood region. The research showed that forests in the US and Canada managed to FSC practices stored additional carbon compared to the baseline, with the results varying based on the type of forest. These results build on other findings by Ontario Nature and Ecotrust, contributing to a growing body of evidence that responsible forest management can help mitigate climate change.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said that carbon emissions from wildfires across Canada from Jan. 1 to July 31 totalled 290 megatonnes – more than double the previous record for the year as a whole. It’s thought that around 40 megatonnes of that total came from B.C.’s wildfires. …“The UN framework convention on climate change dictates that non-human related activities are not reported in greenhouse gas emission inventories,” the Ministry of Environment said. “In B.C., forest fire emissions are included in our provincial greenhouse gas Inventory for transparency; however, they are not counted towards the reported totals by either B.C. or Canada, in line with international practice.” …Jens Wieting, the Sierra Club’s climate campaigner said “(The emissions) are now so huge that it’s important …to improve forest management, restore some of the forests that are very damaged and to improve the ability of forests to hold and sequester more carbon.”
The first-ever rating for a Bioeconomy Development Opportunity Zone in Alberta could allow the Grande Prairie region to explore more renewable energy options. The Municipal District of Greenview and the County of Grande Prairie’s BDO Zone has received an ‘A’ rating from the BDO Zone Initiative for the area’s woody biomass. It’s reported the rating comes from the region’s “robust” forestry and wood industry sector. According to the International Energy Agency, woody biomass provides a renewable energy source, or bioenergy, through the burning of trees, sawmill residue, and forest residue such as branches which contain carbon absorbed through photosynthesis. The BDO Zone Initiative adds that strong BDO zone ratings allow distressed economies to shift to renewable energy. County of Grande Prairie Reeve Robert Marshall says the rating validates what the municipalities already know and symbolizes the efforts the region has taken to move toward a stronger renewable energy-based economy.
As directed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 that was signed into law by President Biden on December 29, 2022, on October 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the report on its general assessment of the state of the U.S. compliance and voluntary carbon markets for the agricultural and forestry sectors. The report, titled 
WASHINGTON – The U.S Department of Agriculture released 
Forests, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in growing vegetation and soils, are key players in the US strategy for carbon dioxide removal and achieving net-zero emissions by midcentury. Will forests be enough? David N. Wear, director of RFF’s Land Use, Forestry, and Agriculture Program and coauthor of a 
The USDA’s Forest Service on Oct. 18 announced it is making nearly $50 million in grant funding available through the agency’s Wood Innovations Grant, Community Wood Grant and Wood Products Infrastructure Assistance Grant Programs. The agency said the funding will spark innovation, create new markets for wood products and renewable wood energy, expand processing capacity and help tackle the climate crisis. The Wood Innovations Grant Program aims to stimulate, expand and support U.S. wood products markets and wood energy markets to support the long-term management of National Forest System and other forest lands. Focus areas of the program include mass timber, renewable wood energy, and technological development that supports hazardous fuel reduction and sustainable forest management. The Forest Service is expected to award up to $20 million under the Wood Innovations Grant Program, with individual awards ranging from $10,000 to $300,000. Applications for the program are due Dec. 15. 
A startup backed and incubated by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures has engineered a hybrid technology that combines engineering with natural photosynthesis processes to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground. …Graphyte takes waste biomass like discarded wood residue or rice hulls, dries and sterilizes it to prevent decomposition. It then condenses it into dense carbon blocks, wraps it in a proprietary polymer barrier and stores it underground in an engineered storage site. …Graphyte says its levelized cost of production is currently under $100 per ton, a moonshot target for carbon removal that direct air capture is still far from achieving. It also requires a tenth of the energy of direct air capture, and the carbon blocks are projected to be durable for over a thousand years, due in part to the proprietary polymer barrier protecting them, according to Rogers. 
Alabama’s forest products industry is growing. Our state boasts more than 23 million acres of forests, which enables Alabamians to produce $12.5 billion in forest products every year. That makes forest products manufacturing one of the top industries in our state. This industry has not only added jobs to Alabama’s workforce but has also provided a sustainable means of managing forests, stimulating rural economies, and contributing significantly to the state’s overall economic growth. While pulp and paper, lumber, and other solid wood products have been a mainstay in the forest products industry for decades, a newer industry is opening up markets for Alabama’s timber industry—sustainably-sourced wood pellets. …Forests need periodic timber harvest to remain healthy. By providing additional markets, the wood pellet industry enables loggers to thin out some of these crowded timber stands that might not otherwise be harvested. This creates healthier forests for both large and small landowners. /cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/AG4JC4WQWNAJPJTE4TXXQC5ZIM.png)
The Government is facing a legal challenge over its reliance on burning trees for green energy in its climate plans. Rewilding charity The Lifescape Project, backed by the Partnership for Policy Integrity, filed an application for a judicial review in the High Court on Friday. The case alleges that the Government’s Biomass Strategy … is unlawful and will undermine the UK’s ability to achieve net zero by 2050. …This process, known as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), is claimed to create “negative emissions” because the carbon released by burning wood is also absorbed by newly planted trees. …The new legal case alleges that the strategy fundamentally misrepresents the dangers of BECCS and that the Government received evidence from the US showing that the wood pellet industry is logging wetland hardwood forests in the US Southeast. …a BBC investigation found that logging forests for fuel has affected ancient and biodiverse forests in Canada.
The European Environment Agency report ‘
A new approach to valuing the carbon storage potential of natural habitats aims to help restore faith in offset schemes, by enabling investors to directly compare carbon credit pricing across a wide range of projects. Current valuation methods for forest conservation projects have come under heavy scrutiny, leading to a crisis of confidence in carbon markets. This is hampering efforts to offset unavoidable carbon footprints, mitigate climate change, and scale up urgently needed investment in tropical forest conservation. Measuring the value of carbon storage is not easy. Recent research revealed that as little as 6% of carbon credits from voluntary REDD+ schemes result in preserved forests. And the length of time these forests are preserved is critical to the climate benefits achieved. Now, a team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge has invented a more reliable and transparent way of estimating the benefit of carbon stored because of forest conservation.
New research suggests we have just six years left to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and two decades to keep temperatures below the 2 C threshold in the Paris Agreement. Global carbon emissions are on track to exceed safe limits by 2030 and unleash the worst effects of climate change, new research suggests. This means we have just six years to change course and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A new estimate of our remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide we can produce while keeping global temperatures below a dangerous threshold — indicates that, as of January, if we emit more than 276 gigatons (250 metric gigatons) of CO2 we will hit temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. The researchers found that if emissions continue at the current rate, we will cross this threshold before the end of the decade, according to a study published Monday (Oct. 30) in the journal 
South Pole, the world’s leading seller of carbon offsets, has been forced to suspend a flagship forest protection project in Zimbabwe amid allegations of exaggerated claims. Around one-fifth of the Swiss firm’s staff could also lose their jobs, according to media reports. Last week the Washington, D.C.-based certification body Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard setter for the offsets market, announced it had launched an investigation into the Kariba REDD+ forest conservation project in northern Zimbabwe, one of South Pole’s largest climate protection projects. …This follows a critical report published on October 16 by the NewYorkerExternal link magazine, entitled “The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle”, which claimed South Pole sold millions of credits for carbon reductions that weren’t real. Defending his company, South Pole CEO Renat Heuberger told Reuters they had followed the approved methodology for the Kariba project at all times.
Bioenergy produced from agricultural, forestry and organic waste feedstock continues to be the main source of renewable energy in the EU, accounting for about 59% of renewable energy consumption in 2021, according to a new Commission report on bioenergy sustainability. Published this week as part of the 2023 State of the Energy Union Report and as required by the Governance Regulation, the report notes that primary solid biofuels (70.3%) represent the largest share of bioenergy, followed by liquid biofuels (12.9%), biogas/ bio-methane (10.1%) and renewable share of municipal waste (6.6%). …The report provides details on solid biomass supply, which mainly comprises woody biomass/forest biomass (66%), biomass from organic waste (26%) – three-quarters of which was in Germany – and agricultural biomass (8%), notably in Sweden and Finland. Overall, primary supply of solid biomass in the EU has increased 33.5%.
