Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

A research team led by the University of Oxford has carried out the most comprehensive assessment to date of how logging and conversion to oil palm plantations affect tropical forest ecosystems. The results demonstrate that these have significantly different and cumulative environmental impacts – and that logged forests should not be immediately ‘written off’ for conversion to oil palm plantations. The findings have been published in Science… In general, logging mostly impacted factors associated with forest structure and environment. Since logging in the tropics is generally selective – focusing on trees with particular commercial qualities – even low levels of logging alter the system. Converting these logged forests to oil palm plantations, however, has greater impacts on biodiversity that go beyond those of logging alone.

The quest to limit global warming and stabilize Earth’s climate hinges on achieving net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This goal requires balancing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with greenhouse gas removal. While traditional carbon capture and storage methods have been proposed, they often involve significant challenges and risks. A promising alternative lies in the materials we already use extensively: building materials such as concrete, asphalt, wood, and bricks. Civil engineers and earth systems scientists from institutions like UC Davis and Stanford University have explored the ability of construction materials to act as carbon sinks. Their findings, published in the journal Science, indicate that these materials could lock away billions of tons of carbon dioxide.

The two companies at the top of credit leaderboard paid vastly different amounts and backed very different projects to achieve their ranking… Microsoft focused almost exclusively on carbon removal credits. Close to 80 percent of the credits it retired were from projects that generate energy by burning biomass and then capturing and storing the associated emissions. Because the biomass captures carbon dioxide as it grows, the process, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), can be carbon negative. Shell focused on projects that avoided greenhouse gas emissions. The company retires credits to offset its emissions and, unlike Microsoft, also helps clients acquire credits. It used more established credit types, retiring 9.4 million forestry and land use credits and 2.4 million renewable energy credits.

A new study by US researchers in Science shows using new, CO2-capturing concrete and other substances instead of traditional building materials could reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by more than 16 billion tonnes. …Alternatives suggested include mixing carbon-sucking substances from the earth, such as dunite, with concrete, using wood-based materials in bricks, and swapping out asphalt bitumen for bio-oil. Experts believe New Zealand has the right raw materials – such as dunite and wood – to switch out its building materials that store CO2. …Diego Elustondo of the Crown-owned wood science company Scion said the premise of the paper was promising but it appeared to favour storing carbon in masonry materials at the expense of wood-based alternatives. He said the comparison should have considered wood-based materials which were at the same stage of development as other future materials mentioned in the paper.

Globally, forests appear to be struggling. Here is some of the latest climate research:

• Global warming is drying waterways and sapping moisture from forests, creating conditions for bigger and hotter wildfires from the U.S. West and Canada to southern Europe and Russia’s Far East.
• Between 10% and 47% of Brazil’s Amazon will face combined stresses of heat and drought from climate change, which could push the Amazon past a tipping point, with the jungle no longer able to produce enough moisture to quench its own trees.
• Forests overall failed to absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as in the past, due largely to wildfires in Canada. That means a record amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere.
• While the vast Arctic tundra has been a carbon sink for thousands of years, rising wildfire emissions mean the tundra is now releasing more carbon than it stores.

The Irish government’s COFORD Council for Forest Research and Development has published a paper that recommends future policies to support an expanded role of forest-based biomass. The paper, entitled “Forest Based Biomass and Modern Bioenergy, Moving to Net Zero“, complements and rounds out an earlier series of COFORD statements on the role of forests and forest products in climate change mitigation. …It is essential to have an evidence base around supply, costs, sustainability and technical feasibility of bioenergy to inform national policies and the climate action plan processes, added the document. One recommendation was that a national bioenergy strategy be developed to set out the general aims for bioenergy use into the future, and a level of ambition for deployment in the context of climate and energy goals, security of energy supply, sustainability and balanced regional development. 

Only four fines out of 5,600 complaints have been issued for illegal burning of wood in smoke-control areas from September 2023 to August 2024 in England, data has revealed… A recent survey found 22% of the UK public use an open fire and/or wood-burning stove in their home. It also found that 37% of Londoners surveyed said they use an open fire and/or a wood-burning stove in their home, despite the capital being a smoke-control area. In smoke-control areas, which have higher levels of pollution, people can only burn wood and other unauthorised fuels in government-approved stoves and other appliances. This is because the approved appliances have air control mechanisms that improve combustion efficiency and reduce the amount of harmful particles released.

The phrase “carbon footprint” is understood across the world today, but this was not the case when it was first used around the start of the 21^st century. The nature and climate crisis has resulted in a raft of vocabulary to explain new phenomena that we all need to learn. But more important than learning the words themselves is developing an understanding of the dynamics behind them, the impacts they could have and – crucially – the way to act now to limit the full scope of their potential future impacts. Here are five phrases that are rising in prominence, the stories behind them and ideas about how to tackle emerging threats.