Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

The EU’s General Court has rejected a legal challenge aimed at reversing the European Commission’s decision to categorize forest biomass energy as a sustainable investment within the bloc’s green finance framework. The court’s decision, issued on 18 March 2026 dismissed an attempt to annul a Commission ruling from July 2022, which had turned down a request for an internal review of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139. This regulation set the technical criteria for determining which forestry management and bioenergy practices can be regarded as environmentally sustainable. The plaintiffs, including Robin Wood and six other environmental NGOs, contended that the Commission’s designation of forestry and forest bioenergy as sustainable was illegal and violated EU legislation, particularly the Taxonomy Regulation. These rulings affirm that the Commission possesses significant discretion in establishing and implementing the taxonomy’s technical criteria, allowing politically sensitive sectors like bioenergy.

In the fight against the climate crisis, countries are pinning great hope in reforestation projects. In a new study, ETH Zurich researchers show that the location in which reforestation is taking place is usually more important than the number of trees planted. If forests are strategically positioned, the same cooling effect could be achieved using half the area of land. Climate researchers at ETH Zurich show where planting trees makes the most sense with a view to achieving the greatest possible cooling effect on the climate. Reforestation in tropical regions has the greatest cooling effect. Tree planting in the northern hemisphere, on the other hand, reduces the reflection of sunlight and has no effect or even contributes to global warming. The cooling effect on the climate will be a maximum of 0.25°C by 2100. This contribution is important, but it cannot replace the urgently required reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. 

Swedish industry uses large amounts of gas… a significant share of this gas is imported via pipeline from Denmark and still largely consists of fossil natural gas. To reduce emissions and strengthen energy security, Sweden needs to increase domestic production of fossil-free gas. …The plan is to build a facility that will produce so-called e-NG (Electric Natural Gas), a synthetic gas that can replace fossil natural gas in existing infrastructure. The project is being developed by OX2 together with the forest industry group Södra and technology developer TES. The ambition is to produce up to 1.2 TWh of e-NG per year by combining two resources already available in the area: Biogenic carbon dioxide from Södras pulp mill in Värö, and Hydrogen produced on site using renewable electricity. When these two components are combined, they form a synthetic gas that is chemically equivalent to natural gas, but without fossil emissions.

A new study with EFI contribution, published in Science, warns that climate-driven disturbances such as wildfires, storms, and bark beetle outbreaks could dramatically reshape Europe’s forests over the coming decades – with damaged forest area potentially doubling by 2100 in the worst-case scenario. Research in the publication “Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century”, led by scientists at the Technical University of Munich, is among the first to quantify how much of Europe’s forests could be affected under different climate pathways. …Using a combination of multi-decadal satellite observations and advanced forest simulations across roughly 13,000 locations, researchers trained an AI-based model on around 135 million data points to project how disturbances may evolve through the 21st century. Their findings show that future disturbance levels exceed those observed today in all scenarios, with significant implications for carbon storage, biodiversity, and timber supply.

Ed Miliband

UK Secretary of State for Energy, Ed Miliband is under pressure from MPs to suspend subsidies worth £2m a day paid to the owner of the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire after court documents cast doubt on the company’s sustainability claims. …The politicians said they were “deeply concerned” that Drax may have been given “substantial billpayer subsidy” while the company “may have knowingly and consistently concealed information” about the green credentials of its wood sources. …The letter revealed that senior executives at Drax had privately raised concerns about the accuracy of its public sustainability claims, after allegations that it was burning wood from some of Canada’s most environmentally important woodlands. …Drax said: “These allegations were investigated by our regulator, Ofgem, who concluded that they did not find any evidence that we had been issued with [subsidy certificates] incorrectly. …They also found no evidence of deliberate misreporting.”

With European manufacturing output down by up to 40% since 2018, and 200,000 industrial jobs lost last year, the European Confederation of the Paper Industry (Cepi) wants to put biomass, circularity and decarbonization financing back at the heart of the industrial debate. The trade organization relies on a report commissioned from Deloitte. According to this analysis… the use of biomass and efficiency in the circularity of materials are structural advantages for European industry in the face of imported fossil products. The report highlights the fact that the forestry and timber industry, which is already governed by national legislation, has to contend with over a hundred additional European regulations. In Cepi’s view, this overlap is holding back biomass-related industrial development. Moreover, paper collection and recycling remains fragmented across the member states. This heterogeneity complicates the optimization of secondary material flows, despite the fact that paper is one of the most recycled materials in Europe.

When the time is right, a good love song can make all the difference. A study from the University of California, Davis, found that temperature affects the sound and quality of male frogs’ mating calls. In the colder, early weeks of spring, their songs start off sluggishly. In warmer weather, their songs pick up the pace, and female frogs take note. Better songs make the males more attractive mates and suggest to females that conditions are suitable for reproduction. …The results carry implications for conservation amid climate change. …Understanding when frogs breed, how that may shift as the climate warms, and what is driving those shifts is critical to their conservation. …females do not necessarily come to the pond just because the males are calling. The time has to be right for her eggs to survive. That clue lies in the quality of the male’s song, which is more attractive once it’s warmer. 

Scotland would have to plant several hundred thousand hectares of new woodland to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the livestock sector by 2050 through afforestation alone, a new study has shown. The study by The James Hutton Institute, which was recently published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, investigated how multi-functional afforestation and livestock reduction could contribute to helping Scotland achieve net-zero emissions in the livestock sector by 2050. This goal aligns with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Researchers have simulated a scenario in which approximately 30,000ha per year of new woodland and agroforestry were planted in Scotland between 2020 and 2025. …It is often assumed such planting can only occur at the expense of grazing area, so the researchers coupled this planting effort with a linear decrease in livestock, with an estimated total reduction of approximately 50% of the present herd numbers.

Boreal ecosystems store twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and warm faster than the global average. The current paradigm based on boreal forests and tundra considers that warming will accelerate boreal carbon loss. However, the warming response of Sphagnum peatlands, storing ~40% of boreal carbon stocks, remains under-investigated. …investigations into two long-term warming experiments in Finnish peatlands, we demonstrate that warming enhances soil carbon accumulation in boreal Sphagnum peatlands. This result sharply contrasts with warming-induced carbon loss from boreal forests and tundra, owing to the unique metabolic response of Sphagnum… Our estimates suggest that warming-induced increase of soil carbon in boreal Sphagnum peatlands (assuming no hydrological changes or plant species shifts) may offset nearly half the boreal forest carbon-sink decline or heterotrophic respiration increases in Arctic tundra under warming. These findings highlight the vital but overlooked role of Sphagnum peatlands in counteracting boreal carbon loss under future warming.

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned. Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster. “We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing. Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. …In January, the UN held a conference in Geneva titled Beyond GDP attended by senior economists from around the world. …A report published by the group late last year argued that… the need for an economic transformation had become increasingly urgent.

Forest soils have an important role in protecting our climate: they remove large quantities of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – from our atmosphere. Researchers from the University of Göttingen and the Baden-Württemberg Forest Research Institute (FVA) evaluated the world’s most comprehensive data set on methane uptake by forest soils. They discovered that under certain climate conditions, which may become more common in the future, their capacity to absorb methane actually increases. The data is based on regular measurements at 13 forest plots in south-western Germany over periods of up to 24 years. The study found forest soils absorb an average of three percent more methane per year. The researchers attribute this to the climate: declining rainfall leads to drier soils which methane penetrates more easily than moist soils. In addition, microorganisms break down methane more quickly as temperatures rise.

The energy industry initially sold wood pellets as a way to clean up coal. And governments bought into that assumption. But now policymakers are questioning that position and even reversing course. At the center of this debate is a UK-based power company called Drax, which converted Europe’s largest coal plant into a biomass facility—one fueled by wood pellets that it imported from southern states in the United States. The debate raises a multitude of questions, namely those centered on pollution and costs. That is, if the additive creates more pollution than either wind or solar energy, why bother, especially since it comes from a power source that depends on subsidies? Merry Dickinson, campaign director for the Dogwood Alliance, told me that Drax now operates entirely on woody biomass… “The amount of wood required … is beyond what is available as waste wood,” Dickinson says. “…much of the supply consists of whole trees.” [Forbes allows 4 free articles per month]

A new study has shown for the first time that waste cardboard can be used as an effective source of biomass fuel for large-scale power generation, offering a potential new domestic resource to support the UK’s renewable energy sector. Engineers from the University of Nottingham have carried out the first comprehensive characterisation of cardboard as a fuel source and developed a new method to assess its composition. The research … provides a practical tool for evaluating different grades of cardboard for use in energy production. The study found that cardboard displays distinct physical and chemical properties compared with traditional biomass fuels. These include lower carbon content, a reduced heating value and a high level of calcium carbonate fillers, particularly in printed grades. Calcium carbonate is commonly added to cardboard to improve stiffness and optical qualities, but during combustion it forms ash that can reduce boiler performance.

WASHINGTON — EARTHDAY.ORG, together with partners worldwide, today announces the global theme for Earth Day 2026: Our Power, Our Planet–a rallying cry for people everywhere to reclaim their voice, their rights, and their future. Other than limited signs of progress, 2025 was a year marked by extraordinary environmental retrenchment. The current Administration took more than 400 actions ranging from sweeping executive orders to obscure regulatory changes, that are causing irreversible damage to every facet of the global environment. Across the world, environmental safeguards that took generations to defend and create are under relentless attack; stripped away to the benefit of polluters while communities pay the price with their health, livelihoods, and lives. The belief that progress can be secured quietly, through good-faith negotiations alone is no longer a reflection of reality. Real change requires persistent public pressure that is impossible to ignore.

AUSTRALIA — Our research has uncovered the hidden world of the tiny organisms living in the bark of trees. We discovered they are quietly helping to purify the air and remove greenhouse gases. These microbes “eat”, or use, gases like methane and carbon monoxide for energy and survival. Most significantly, they also remove hydrogen, which has a role in super-charging climate change. …Bark was long assumed to be largely biologically inert in relation to climate. But our findings show it hosts active microbial communities that influence key atmospheric gases. …Over the past five years, collaborative research between Southern Cross and Monash universities studied the bark of eight common Australian tree species. We found the trees in these contrasting ecosystems all shared one thing in common: their bark was teeming with microscopic life. …Trees could be a major, previously unrecognised, global natural system for drawing down hydrogen out of the atmosphere.

Forest management has entered a phase defined by competing pressures. Fire risk is rising. Biomass residues are accumulating. Carbon accounting expectations are tightening. Pyrolysis has emerged as a technical lever capable of addressing these constraints simultaneously. Its value lies not in abstract sustainability claims, but in its operational and ecological consequences when integrated into forestry systems. Reducing Fuel Load and Wildfire IntensitymOne of the most immediate benefits of pyrolysis in forest management is fuel load reduction. Thinning operations, deadwood removal, and post-harvest residues generate large volumes of low-grade biomass. When left unmanaged, this material increases wildfire probability and severity. …When treated as an ancillary technology, pyrolysis underperforms. When embedded as a strategic tool, it amplifies the effectiveness of existing management practices. Pyrolysis contributes by connecting fuel reduction, carbon management, soil health, and economic viability within a single operational logic. 

Last year will be remembered as a real test of commitment for the global sustainability agenda. Political uncertainty and regulatory rollbacks, particularly the weakening of flagship EU legislation such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and yet another delay in enforcing the European Union Deforestation Regulation, signal a troubling loss of resolve. These decisions reward inaction and deter the very ambition needed to secure long-term economic and environmental resilience. But the crisis of nature loss should not be left to the shifting winds of policy; it requires businesses to step forward and lead the way. As we enter 2026, a pivotal triple-COP year for climate, biodiversity and desertification, it’s time to look past the political noise. While compliance meets today’s requirements, only a deeper commitment to the environment can protect a business against the lasting costs of nature loss. 

NEW ZEALAND — Let’s not sugar coat it: this year was a tough year for forestry in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It’s especially frustrating as we had begun to believe the government’s promise, made just after it took power in late 2023, to “restore credibility in the ETS”. Indeed, this promise looked plausible up until quite recently. After all, the LUC restrictions, while unpopular among forestry companies and investors, had been clearly communicated long before the 2023 election. So no surprises there – except for a pleasant surprise in August, when the government announced it would not adopt the Climate Change Commission’s somewhat perplexing recommendation to reinject about 14 million of unsold auction NZUs from 2028 to 2030. The positive streak finally ended in October when the government began a staccato of policy tweaks that have cumulatively undermined confidence in the government’s commitment to climate change mitigation and, by extension, the ETS.

Marty Odlin

With support from Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, Running Tide billed itself as on the cutting edge of carbon removal. In the end, it resorted to dumping thousands of tons of wood chips in the sea.  American Marty Odlin spoke at a town hall meeting in Akranes, Iceland. Odlin, the founder of a US climate startup called Running Tide, had become a well-known figure around Akranes that summer of 2022… He was setting up a base of operations in a nearby harbor, planning to unleash a counteroffensive against climate change. Odlin had outlined a plan to create jobs in this former fishing hub of 8,000. He’d need people to help sink huge volumes of biomass in the surrounding ocean. …Hróbjartsson, Running Tide’s former general manager, is skeptical about how much positive impact the marine carbon-removal industry can have. “We’re just making a prettier carbon-offset market,” he says of the industry. “It’s lipstick on a pig.”