Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged support for a Brazilian initiative to support the conservation of the world’s endangered forests, at international talks on the edge of the Amazon rainforest ahead of the annual United Nations climate conference, COP30. The initiative, dubbed the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, drew $5.5 billion (€4.7 billion) in pledges, with Norway and France promising to join Brazil and Indonesia in investing. Merz said that Germany would make a “considerable” pledge, but didn’t specify an amount. The fund eventually seeks to leverage investments into $125 billion (€108 billion) that can be used to pay 74 developing countries for every hectare of forest they conserve. Dozens of governments have expressed support for the fund and are engaged in talks to learn more about it, Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said, including China and the United Arab Emirates.

Brazil’s main plan to protect the Amazon rainforest, the centerpiece of its COP30 climate agenda, is moving ahead — with Norway playing a key role in its launch, though initial funding falls well short of expectations. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF, designed to support the conservation of endangered forests worldwide, will receive around $5 billion in pledged contributions — far short of its $25 billion target. Norway and France have agreed to join Brazil in investing in the fund, while Germany will announce its contribution on Friday, Brazilian ministers said on Thursday. “It is an unprecedented initiative,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. “Forests are worth far more standing than felled.” The new fund could play a pivotal role in forest protection as the current climate policies and green finance remain insufficient to address the magnitude of the global challenge, said Lula.

BELEM, Brazil — Google has struck its biggest carbon removal deal, agreeing to finance restoration of the Amazon rainforest with Brazilian startup Mombak, as big tech hunts for high-quality credits to offset emissions tied to energy-hungry data centres. The companies said the deal would offset 200,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. …The agreement highlights how big tech is looking for ways to soften the climate impacts of its huge investment in power-intensive data centres for AI, driving demand to offset carbon emissions through Brazil’s nascent reforestation industry. Last year, Alphabet’s Google committed more than US$100 million to an array of different carbon capture technologies, from enhanced rock weathering and biochar to direct air capture and a project making rivers more acidic. But when it came time to double down, it was hard to beat the efficiency of planting trees. [to access the full story a Bloomberg subscription is required]

Britain’s biggest power plant will continue to earn more than £1m a day from burning wood pellets under a new government subsidy contract designed to halve its financial support, according to analysts. The Drax power plant in North Yorkshire is in line to earn £458.6m a year between 2027 and 2031 after the government agreed to extend its subsidies beyond 2026, according to analysts at Ember, a climate thinktank. The earnings are well below the £869m in subsidies handed to the Drax power plant last year for generating about 5% of the UK’s electricity from burning biomass after the government promised to curb the use of biomass in Britain’s power system. Under the contract, Drax will be paid to run just over a quarter of the time, down sharply from almost two-thirds of time currently. But the price it will earn for each unit of electricity generated will rise.

EU climate ministers agreed a 2040 climate change target in the early hours of Wednesday after watering down the goal in last-minute negotiations, as they raced to clinch the deal before the UN COP30 summit in Brazil. Climate ministers from European Union countries approved in a public vote a compromise to cut emissions 90% by 2040, from 1990 levels, but with flexibilities to weaken this aim. The weakened target would let countries buy foreign carbon credits to cover up to 5% of the 90% emissions-cutting goal. That would effectively weaken to 85% the emissions cuts required from European industries, and pay foreign countries to cut emissions on Europe’s behalf to make up the rest. The EU also agreed to consider the option, in future, to use international carbon credits to meet a further 5%. Additionally, countries agreed a 2035 target to cut emissions in a range of 66.25-72.5%. The UN asked all governments to submit 2035 climate plans before COP30 opens Thursday.

Panama – Unveiled today at its General Assembly, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) reports a sharp slide in public concern for climate change, even after the hottest year on record. The 2025 Global Consumer Awareness Survey – conducted with Ipsos across 50 countries and 40,000+ respondents – find war and conflict (52%) now dominate public worries while climate change trails at 31%. That is a 21-point gap in the 2025 snapshot. Looking only at the 32 countries surveyed in both 2022 and 2025, the concern gap has widened from 12 points in 2022 – where economic hardship was on top position – to 16 points in 2025. …While ‘climate change’ may rank lower as an abstract global issue in the 50-country snapshot, across the forestry module markets, the impacts felt through forests –wildfires, droughts, floods, and biodiversity loss – rank among the top concerns within the forestry sector.

EU ministers are closing in on a deal for the bloc’s 2040 climate target, with a proposed ‘brake clause’ offering flexibility if Europe’s forests fail to absorb enough carbon. The “brake clause” could allow the European Union soften its 2040 climate target in future years – a move aimed at giving countries breathing room if Europe’s forests fail to soak up enough carbon dioxide to meet the goal. According to a draft proposal, EU countries are considering allowing an adjustment to the target if forest and land-use activities – which play a vital role in absorbing emissions – fall short. The idea is to build in some flexibility, without derailing the bloc’s overall climate ambitions. The EU’s environment ministers are expected to meet on 4 November in a bid to finalise the new 2040 target – in time for EC President Ursula von der Leyen to take a fresh commitment to the Cop30 climate summit on 6 November.

The Earth’s forests, soil and oceans are reaching their critical limits to naturally store carbon, as decades of climate change take their toll, according to a new analysis. The annual 10 New Insights in Climate Science report warns weaker land carbon sinks, threaten to derail emissions projections and accelerating global warming at the same time. The study highlights how forests and soils in the Northern hemisphere are reaching critical limits and are increasingly affected by wildfires and permafrost thawing. The new report is a joint initiative of Future Earth, The Earth League, and the World Climate Research Programme. “The possibility that natural sinks are weakening at the current level of warming underscores the urgent need to accelerate both emissions reductions and carbon removal,” the report states. It also adds even the oceans are soaking up less carbon dioxide, while more frequent and intense marine heatwaves take their toll.

A $9 million government boost to wood energy production has been welcomed by a company with its sights set on building a torrefied wood-pellet plant in Kawerau. …In line with the plan, the Government is offering $3m in co-funding via the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and $6m in repayable grants to businesses looking at building wood-energy supply manufacturing facilities. Foresta, an Australian company planning to build a $410m wood-pellet plant in Kawerau, told Local Democracy Reporting that it had already applied for funding under the new facility. …Foresta said the planned Kawerau plant on Putauaki Trust industrial-zoned land could employ more than 75 people. …Foresta has proposed that a consistent supply of wood pellets to Huntly Power Station could be a viable option to offset issues around coal supply and reliance, while maintaining necessary power generation levels.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) rose faster in 2024 than in any year since records began. …Our new satellite analysis shows that the Amazon rainforest is struggling to keep up. And worryingly, the satellite that made this discovery could soon be switched off [due to proposed NASA budget cuts.]. Systematic measurements of CO₂ in the atmosphere began in the late 1950s. …Across six decades of measurements, CO₂ has gradually increased.  …The largest change was over the Amazon, where much less CO₂ is being absorbed. Similar slowdowns also appeared over southern Africa and southeast Asia, parts of Australia, the eastern US, Alaska and western Russia. Conversely, we detected more carbon being absorbed over western Europe, the US and central Canada. …It’s not yet clear whether 2023-24 is a short-term blip or an early sign of a long-term shift. But evidence points to an increasingly fragile situation, as tropical forests are stressed by hot and dry conditions.

Google has announced plans to address greenhouse gases beyond carbon dioxide by purchasing credits to support the emerging market for removing short-lived but highly potent “superpollutants.” The company will buy up to 25,000 tonnes of superpollutant-destruction credits by 2030 from two organisations, Recoolit and Cool Effect—equivalent to about one million tonnes of CO₂ removal over the long term. While carbon dioxide remains a key focus, Google said gases such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide have a much greater near-term warming impact. “It’s the right thing to do for the planet,” said Randy Spock, Google’s carbon credits and removals lead. “CO₂ is obviously very important… but if we think only about CO₂, then we’re just looking at one piece of the puzzle.” …Sam Abernethy, a climate scientist at Spark Climate Solutions, said: “Superpollutants only get a few percent of climate finance… that’s a misallocation given their importance.”

A new list of 28 tree species for foresters to grow in the future marks a major step forward in helping our woodlands and forests adapt to the growing threats of climate change. The list has been developed through extensive collaboration between Scottish Forestry, Forest Research, and a wide range of partners from across the forestry, conservation, and rural sectors. The trees chosen highlights a diverse mix of species that have been carefully assessed against strict scientific criteria to ensure they can withstand changing conditions while continuing to deliver economic, environmental, and community benefits. …Scottish Forestry commissioned experts from Forest Research to gather the scientific evidence to support the selection of trees. In total, over 100 datasets were compiled and analysed in thorough detail and more than 100 experts and industry leaders were involved in pulling together the work.

Woody trunks and branches of trees in the wet tropical rainforests of Queensland are losing their ability to absorb excess carbon dioxide. That’s according to an analysis of 49 years’ worth of data, published in Nature today, which shows this “woody biomass” has switched from being a net carbon absorber to an emitter. And this shift occurred about 25 years ago. Ecophysiologist and study lead Hannah Carle, from Western Sydney University, said the historical assumption has been wet tropical rainforests around the world and Australia were “carbon sinks”. …But the new study showed woody biomass [was becoming] a carbon source because carbon lost to trees dying and decaying outstripped the carbon gained by trees growing to replace them. …This may be a sign that these Australian wet rainforests as a whole ecosystem were in decline, and could switch from being net carbon sinks to carbon sources in the future, according to the study.

GENEVA — Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization and “turbo-charging” the Earth’s climate and causing more extreme weather, the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday. The World Meteorological Organization said in its latest bulletin on greenhouse gases, an annual study released ahead of the U.N.’s annual climate conference, that CO2 growth rates have now tripled since the 1960s, and reached levels that existed more than 800,000 years ago. Emissions from burning coal, oil and gas, alongside more wildfires, have helped fan a “vicious climate cycle,” and people and industries continue to spew heat-trapping gases while the planet’s oceans and forests lose their ability to absorb them, the WMO report said.

UK — West Fraser has published a new factsheet, announcing the achievement that its UK operations are now officially counted as carbon negative, showing the industry that this is the way forward as a responsible producer of timber panel products. …All of its UK products have been certified as being net carbon negative – meaning that they lock up more CO2e than is emitted in making them. …This assertion is backed up by the fact that West Fraser sequesters 1.1 million tonnes of CO2e in its European operations each year, while its OSB products have earned an A+ rating in the BRE Green Guide. Other aspects of its progress include how three-quarters of the group’s use of renewable energy globally is based on biomass. …In terms of actual forestry management, 72.4 million seedlings are planted in Canada, plus over 2 million in the US. …Other important facts can be found in their 2024 Sustainability Report.

In 2024, the Amazon Rainforest underwent its most devastating forest fire season in more than two decades. According to a new study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the fire-driven forest degradation released an estimated 791 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, a sevenfold increase compared with the previous two years. The carbon emissions from fires in 2024 surpassed those from deforestation for the first time on record. Brazil was the largest contributor, accounting for 61% of these emissions, followed by Bolivia with 32%, the study found. “The escalating fire occurrence, driven by climate change and unsustainable land use, threatens to push the Amazon towards a catastrophic tipping point,” the authors write. …The researchers estimated that the total emissions from deforestation and fire-driven degradation in the Amazon in 2024 was 1,416 million metric tons of CO2. This is higher than Japan’s CO2 emissions in 2022, which ranked fifth after China, the U.S., India and Russia.

The failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is “not due to a few bad apples”, a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve. Research over two decades has found “intractable” problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year “did not substantially address the quality problem”. “We must stop expecting carbon offsetting to work at scale,” said Stephen Lezak, at the University of Oxford’s Smith School. …In theory, the practice could lead to lower levels of global heating by funnelling money to the places where it will do the most good as soon as possible. But voluntary carbon markets have long been plagued by “junk offsets” that overstate their impact.

Josep “Pep” Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, says he believes countries large and small need to think twice before pledging to collectively plant billions of trees as a primary emissions-reduction strategy to meet climate action goals. “We have somehow sold reforestation as an easier path [to fighting climate change], and it’s not easy at all,” Canadell said. “In my view, it’s not even easier than carbon capture and storage, a technology we’re still developing. That’s because when you bring humans into landscapes and try managing these landscapes, this stuff becomes very complex.” Canadell is the co-author of a new study in Science that found, among other things, that the amount of land deemed suitable for newly planted and restored forests — an area roughly the size of India — quickly shrinks by as much as two-thirds when taking into account adverse impacts on biodiversity, food security and water resources.

AUSTRALIA — The Federal Government’s National Bioenergy Feedstock Strategy discussion paper released by the Hon Julie Collins MP, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, is being welcomed by the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) for the new economic and environmental opportunities it presents for our sector and the country, Chief Executive Officer of AFPA, Diana Hallam said. The discussion paper covers the opportunities for bioenergy to contribute to Australia’s net zero goals, the production of potential feedstocks, required infrastructure and supply chain readiness and maturity, addressing social licence and sustainability, as well as biosecurity and traceability issues. …Diana Hallam said, “While many in the forest products industry are aware of the bioenergy opportunities for the sector, having a national strategy will seriously maximise the potential for forest industries to enhance their contribution, grow public awareness of the importance of wood fibre in this area and help Australia achieve net zero.