Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Scientists have found that focusing on restoring degraded forests, which cover more than 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) globally, can enhance forest carbon stocks more efficiently than replanting in deforested areas, with natural regrowth being a cost-effective method. In Central America’s “Five Great Forests,” there’s a goal to restore 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) by 2030. The study identified 9.8 million hectares (24.2 billion acres) as top restoration priorities, with 91% being degraded forests. Restoring just 5% of these priority zones was calculated to potentially sequester 113 million tons of CO2, equivalent to taking more than 20 million cars off the road for a year. The research emphasizes the importance of involving local communities in restoration planning and suggests that current forest management practices, like those in the timber industry, need to adapt for more sustainable outcomes.

New studies raise issues that complicate the ambitious goals to use mass tree-planting to fight climate change. The researchers warn that in some cases, carbon-offset tree plantations could reduce biodiversity, doing more harm than good for the environment. …Globally, it is estimated that forests absorb enough CO2 each year to make up for one-and-a-half times the greenhouse gases that the United States emits annually. That kind of carbon drawdown capacity motivated large-scale tree planting efforts… But trees that die, burn or are cut can release that CO2 back into the atmosphere, and trees planted in large stands of only a few species do not function the way that naturally diverse forest ecosystems do. …A study of tree planting in the tropics published Tuesday, in the monthly journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, argues that these carbon-offset plantations can come at the expense of biodiversity and other important services that forests provide.

Using a new analysis method for satellite images, an international research team, coordinated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and INRAE, mapped for the first time annual changes in global forest biomass between 2010 and 2019. Researchers discovered that boreal and temperate forests have become the main global carbon sinks. Tropical forests, which are older and degraded by deforestation, fire and drought, are nearly carbon neutral. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, highlight the importance of accounting for young forests and forest degradation in predictive carbon‑sink models to develop more effective climate change mitigation strategies. …Monitoring biomass carbon stocks over time is essential to better understand and predict the effects of ongoing and future climate change. …The findings highlight the importance of accounting for forest degradation and forest age when predicting dynamics of future carbon sinks at global level, and thereby develop better-suited climate change mitigation policies.

Big brands’ efforts to get coal out of their supply chains by encouraging a shift to biomass like wood pellets and rice husks is a “greenwashing tactic” that risks delaying a transition to cleaner energy sources and increasing deforestation, a group of 16 Indonesia-based environmental advocacy organisations have said. In an open letter to the industry published earlier this week, organisations including Rainforest Action Network and Friends of the Earth Indonesia warned that the fashion industry’s current decarbonisation strategies have failed to take into account the detrimental impact of biomass on communities in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. Existing plans by the Indonesian government to scale up its use of the feedstock to meet renewable energy targets have already put some two million hectares of natural forest at risk in the country, according to analysis by Trend Asia, another signatory of the letter.

NEW ZEALAND – Forest owners are furious over new charges being levied for forestry registered in the Emissions Trading Scheme. The government has announced a new $30.25 per hectare charge for forests, as well as new fees for 22 services, such as changing the classification of exotic or indigenous areas and asking for more time to collect forest measurements. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said the principle behind the charges is that those benefiting from having forests in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) should pay those charges rather than having them funded by the New Zealand taxpayer. But forestry investment firm Lewis Tucker said the new levy is an indiscriminate tax on the entire forestry sector that has been rammed through by MPI. …The Forest Owners Association (FOA) also hit back, saying the levy is another government disincentive to plant forests when they are most needed. 

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron unveiled plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet the country’s climate-related commitments within the next seven years, including via reducing dependency on fossil fuels and boosting electric car use. Macron said France’s goal to reduce its emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels is “attainable”. …Macron confirmed that the country’s two remaining coal-burning plants would cease operating and be converted to biomass energy, which is produced by burning wood, plants and other organic material, by 2027. The coal plants currently represent less than 1 percent of France’s electricity production. The two plants were initially set to close by last year, but the energy crisis prompted by the war in Ukraine and the shutdown of French nuclear reactors for various problems led the government to delay the decision. …Environmental activists have criticized France’s policies as not being ambitious enough.

Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber

NEW YORK — Today, COP28 President-Designate Dr. Sultan Al Jaber addressed the UN Climate Ambition Summit in New York where he reminded the international community that “we are not powerless” to overcome the climate crisis and urged the world to “get after gigatons”. The summit, which is the landmark climate engagement during United Nations General Assembly and was convened by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, was attended by world leaders, the private sector and civil society. During his speech, the President-Designate emphasised that “climate change is our common enemy, and we must unite to fight it”. Dr. Al Jaber pointed to recent data from the first Global Stocktake, which confirmed that “the world is falling short, and we are running out of time” but was emphatic in stating that it is not too late to change course. He concluded by calling on leaders to “turn pledges into projects and ambition into action”.

Kiwi company Carbonscape has won $18 million to commercialise its graphite-made-from-wood technology in Europe and the US, in the hopes it will catch the eye of a sustainability-minded battery maker. Finnish company Stora Enso, which has a “hard carbon” product on its books already, and Hong Kong-based battery maker Amperex Technology led the round. Carbonscape is looking to commercialise the heavily patented technology, which puts wood chips from forestry industries through a low-temperature catalytic process to turn them into graphite. The process being increasingly explored by researchers in the field is using an iron catalyst for turning wood into graphite, which is removed and recycled to use again using an acid wash.

The vast majority of the environmental projects most frequently used to offset greenhouse gas emissions appear to have fundamental failings suggesting they cannot be relied upon to cut planet-heating emissions, according to a new analysis.  …But there is mounting evidence suggesting that many of these offset schemes exaggerate climate benefits and underestimate potential harms.  …The 50 most popular global projects include forestry schemes, hydroelectric dams, solar and wind farms, waste disposal and greener household appliances schemes across 20 (mostly) developing countries, according to data from AlliedOffsets, the most comprehensive emissions trading database which tracks projects from inception.  …According to our research, more than a third of the top 50 projects had some evidence of three or more fundamental failings. …Four carbon markets experts said the findings were based on solid methodology and shine a light on the pitfalls of market-driven climate solutions which can enable polluters to keep polluting instead of transitioning off fossil fuels.

LONDON – Global investment of $2.7 trillion a year is needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and avoid temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday. Scientists have said the world ideally needs to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5C this century to avoid catastrophic effects from climate change. Many governments have pledged to reduce emissions to net zero by mid-century to help achieve this. However, most countries are not on track to even meet emissions targets by 2030, let alone 2050, the report said. …Renewables such as wind and solar power need to become the world’s main source of power supply to support the electrification of transport and production of green hydrogen, the report said.

In a move to secure a place in the emerging carbon market, two Australian forestry sector veterans have launched the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition (ISFC). The coalition will tackle climate finance and market mechanisms, pushing for coherent and implementable solutions. Comprising 10 founding companies, managing nine million hectares of forest across 27 countries, the coalition will lean on the United Nations and COP-related processes that are critical for transforming forestry into an investible asset class. Ross Hampton, a seasoned Australian forestry sector lobbyist, will lead the ISFC, along with chair David Brand, an industry executive. …forestry has remained largely unrepresented in global discussions. …By championing a unified, global voice, the coalition seeks to harness an industry set to become a vital part of a market already worth US$100 billion. It aims to fulfil the industry’s potential, not only as an asset class but as a crucial part of global decarbonisation efforts.

Dr. Matthieu Bourdon … at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research– and colleagues have taken a different approach to understanding woody biomass. They took callose, a polymer that is naturally occurring in some cell walls of plants, and successfully engineered it into the specialised secondary cell walls of plants — the wood. Published in Nature Plants, 2023, the research involving international collaborations across multiple institutes shows callose-enriched wood is much more easily converted into simple sugars and bioethanol than non-engineered wood. …the team found callose-enriched wood showed interesting new properties, like an increased hygroscopicity and porosity, which makes the polymers more accessible for extracting and converting into simpler building blocks like sugars or bioethanol. …“We foresee that our engineered wood will benefit biomaterials and biofuels production relying on biomass deconstruction and polymer accessibility, such as packaging materials or even advanced biomaterials like cellulose nanofibrils and delignified wood,” Dr Bourdon said.

GERMANY — The German government’s new building energy legislation to phase out the use of fossil fuel heating systems has generated mixed reactions from industry associations and environmental groups. The much-debated law, introduced on 8 September, “finally creates planning security in the heating transition for consumers, industry, and the skilled trades,” Simone Peter, head of the renewable energy industry association BEE, said. Peter argued that the “overdue” decision will enable a ramp-up of renewable power in the heating sector. The BEE head said green hydrogen could not play a major role in the sector’s decarbonisation due to scarcity concerns. “Only with renewable solutions – from heat pumps, solar, thermal and geothermal installations to wood, pellets and biogas – can the heating transition be successful,” she said. …Greenpeace said the law lacked ambition and fell short of meeting the climate targets for the heating sector. 

After the UK renewable energy auction that failed to garner a single offshore wind contract, the government may need to extend deals with the likes of Drax Group to keep their coal and biomass power stations going for longer. …Saying the auction had “flopped”, Investec analysts predicted that Downing Street will now need to agree on a deal with Drax. The power company has been facing some uncertainty as the existing subsidy to provide electricity from burning wood pellets ends in 2027. Though it has taken some encouragement from recent government support for some of its activities, Drax has claimed it faces a gap in its funding, with its £2bn carbon capture project not expected until 2030. The Investec analysts said: “Keeping Drax on the system post March 2027 looks ever more important.”