Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

The battle to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius has been a rallying cry for climate action for nearly a decade. Now, with the planet almost certain to blow past the target, diplomats and campaigners at the COP29 summit have found themselves awkwardly clinging to a goal that no longer makes sense. The evidence has become harder and harder to ignore. This year will once again be the hottest on record as greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar and Earth will likely register an average reading of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. A study released this month using a new technique for measuring the rise in temperatures suggests the world was already 1.49C hotter at the end of 2023. …The mood in Baku has not been hopeful. Leaders from most major economies, consumed by domestic political struggles, failed to turn up. 

Related coverage in the NY Times: At COP29, Climate ‘Optimism Has Been Dampened’

Bill Hare

BAKU, Azerbaijan — For the third straight year, efforts to fight climate change haven’t lowered projections for how hot the world is likely to get — even as countries gather for another round of talks to curb warming, according to an analysis Thursday. At the United Nations climate talks, in Azerbaijan, nations are trying to set new targets to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and figure out how much rich nations will pay to help the world with that task. But Earth remains on a path to be 2.7 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists and analysts who study government policies and translate that into projections of warming. If emissions are still rising and temperature projections are no longer dropping, people should wonder if the United Nations climate negotiations — known as COP — are doing any good, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare.

At COP29 in Azerbaijan, the stakes surrounding climate change have never been higher. Unprecedented forest fires are ravaging landscapes globally and drought-stricken parts of the Amazon face severe consequences. Sea-level rise, extreme heat and shifting weather patterns, all of which are direct consequences of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, compound the urgency. The United Nations Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report, highlights forests as one of the top three sectors that can deliver a third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the 2030 climate goals. Forests also play a critical role in providing sustainable livelihoods, regulating water cycles, reducing extreme weather and protecting human health. Destroying them risks crossing irreversible tipping points, from which we may not recover. Despite countless pledges … deforestation and degradation continue unabated. The time for talk has passed. Action is overdue and COP29 provides us with a timely opportunity to start the fightback with real purpose.

Is it possible to heat the planet to dangerous levels and then cool it down later? Economic models charting the world’s path to net zero emissions say yes. However, this bet on future large-scale carbon removal risks becoming a “get out of jail free” clause that allows high emissions to continue inflaming the climate crisis. A new study by leading scientists has criticised the overconfidence of policymakers and climate modellers – even the authors of the 2015 Paris agreement – for making this gamble. Their research highlights the pitfalls of assuming temperature thresholds can be safely exceeded and then reinstated. They’re right – and the problem runs even deeper. The challenge of implementing carbon removal at the scale required isn’t simply a matter of the technology being available and cost effective to deploy. Large-scale CO₂ removal depends on there being vast amounts of land to store carbon in trees and soil.

Carbon markets are one step closer to being part of global climate plans after a speedy COP decision. …Last night, this version of Article 6 was quickly adopted by countries in what COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev called an early “breakthrough” for the summit. …But the gavelling through of Article 6 was criticised by climate justice groups, who said carbon markets allow major polluters to keep emitting at the expense of people and the planet. “It sends a bad signal to open COP29 by legitimising carbon markets as a solution to climate change,” says Ilan Zugman, Latin America and Caribbean director of global climate campaign groups 350.org. “They are not – they will increase inequalities, infringe on human rights, and hinder real climate action.” Here’s a look at Article 6 and the carbon credits system it aims to implement – and why it’s so controversial. 

The language of world leaders speaking on Tuesday at the United Nations climate summit was diplomatic, but the underlying message was clear: There’s friction over the big issue at the conference. The negotiations are focused on delivering a new plan to provide developing countries with funds to adapt to a warming world. Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s climate envoy, said there was widespread agreement that cutting emissions and making countries more resilient to storms, floods and heat would require “trillions” of dollars. But just days into the talks, there were pointed comments from the leaders and squabbling in the negotiating rooms about the details, including exactly how much money should be raised, who should pay, where it should come from and how it should be spent. “How? Where? By whom?” said Mr. Mohamed, the lead negotiator for the African group of countries. “That’s the discussion that’s currently underway.” [A New York Times subscription is required to read this full story]

Anna Simet

I wrote a feature article about the European Union Deforestation Regulation in Pellet Mill Magazine. The main point was that although well intended, there has been considerable controversy surrounding the EUDR. This has been largely stoked by a delay in the issuance of much-needed guidance regarding key provisions, as well as the short amount of time (and cost) to prepare, among other factors. Under the regulation, operators and traders who place certain commodities, including wood pellets, on the EU market or export from it must provide proof that the products haven’t originated from or contributed to deforestation. Operators must collect information, documents and data showing that the product is deforestation-free and legal, such as geolocation coordinates, quantity and country of production. The geolocation requirement is perhaps the biggest challenge for wood pellet exporters, considering the often complex supply chain when it comes to wood fiber feedstocks.

The UN climate summit in Azerbaijan kicked off Monday with many key leaders not even showing up. With low expectations set before it even began, the summit will see speeches on the need for a vast flow of money from rich countries to poorer ones. …The main problem is that wealthy countries — responsible for most emissions leading to climate change— want to cut emissions while poorer countries mainly want to eradicate poverty through growth. To get poorer countries to act against their own interest, the West started offering cash two decades ago. …The rich world didn’t deliver… and now developing countries now want more money. …Cleverly, campaigners and developing countries have rebranded the reason for these transfers by blaming weather damage costs. …Factually, this is an ill-considered claim because weather damages from hurricanes, floods, droughts, and other weather calamities have declined as a percentage of global GDP since 1990, both for rich and poor countries.

For the next two weeks, countries will gather on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss how to increase finance for climate crisis adaptation and mitigation. A global agreement on carbon markets will be high on the agenda as countries try to find ways of generating the trillions they need to decarbonise in order to limit heating to below 2C above preindustrial levels. …Carbon markets facilitate the trading of carbon credits. Each credit is equal to a tonne of carbon dioxide that has been reduced or removed from the atmosphere. They come from a wide range of sources: tree-planting schemes, forest protection and renewable energy projects are all common. …Where do they feature in the Paris Agreement? …Why are they so controversial? ….What are the risks if it goes badly?

Ulf Larsson

The volume of growing trees in Swedish forests has doubled over the last hundred years. There is a continuous increase in living biomass, and the state of Swedish forests as a sink for carbon has never been more important. The same goes for the use of wood-based products in displacing emission-intensive materials like concrete, plastic, and steel. The significance of timber and wood in the green transition of Europe is immense. And the potential is even bigger. This might come as a surprise for many following the debate in recent years. We have constantly been alerted about a state of emergency, where alleged aggressive forestry practises supposedly have led to massive deforestation and forest degradation in Europe in general and in the Nordics in particular. But the claim that there has been an abrupt increase in harvesting is not correct.

Commenting on the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) report Clean Power 2030 Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said: NESO couldn’t be any clearer, our power stations and plans to invest billions in renewable flexible electricity and carbon removals have a critical role to play in delivering the Government’s clean power target and wider climate goals. Drax Power Station’s secure biomass generation, and our intention to double the capacity of our pumped hydro site, Cruachan Power Station, are essential components of the pathways that NESO have set out. NESO says the deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is required to meet the Government’s carbon removal targets. We aim to install at least two units of BECCS at Drax Power Station, with the first operational in 2030 removing 4 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere per year.

Almost two decades ago, the atmosphere’s levels of methane — a dangerous greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term — started to climb. And climb. Methane concentrations, which had been stable for years, soared by 5 or 6 parts per billion every year from 2007 onward. Then, in 2020, the growth rate nearly doubled. Scientists were baffled — and concerned. Methane is the big question mark hanging over the world’s climate estimates; although it breaks down in the atmosphere much faster than fossil fuels, it is so powerful that higher than expected methane levels could shift the world toward much higher temperatures. But now, a study sheds light on what’s driving record methane emissions. The culprits, scientists believe, are microbes…

Drax will keep raising the levels of carbon emissions in the atmosphere until the 2050s despite using carbon capture technology, according to scientific research. The large power plant in North Yorkshire is a significant generator of electricity for the UK but has faced repeated criticism of its business model of burning wood pellets sourced from forests in the US and Canada. The new study found that the intensive forest management needed to source 7m tonnes of wood pellets to burn as fuel every year would erode the carbon stored in the ecosystems of these pine forests for at least 25 years… “The results demonstrate that the CCS technology itself is less important than the impact of wood pellet sourcing on forest carbon stocks and flows,” the study said.

Scientists say there has been an alarming lack of progress in saving nature as the UN biodiversity summit, COP 16, draws to a close. The scale of political ambition has not risen to the challenge of reducing the destruction of nature that costs the economy billions, said one leading expert… We are stuck in a “vicious cycle where economic woes reduce political focus on the environment” while the destruction of nature costs the economy billions, said Tom Oliver, professor of biodiversity at the University of Reading… Commenting on the talks, the renowned scientist, Dr Jane Goodall, said our future is “ultimately doomed” if we don’t address biodiversity loss.

The world’s biggest nature conservation conference closed in Colombia on Saturday with no agreement on a roadmap to ramp up funding for species protection. The 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was suspended by its president Susana Muhamad as negotiations ran almost 12 hours longer than planned and delegates started leaving to catch flights. The exodus left the summit without a quorum for decision-making, but CBD spokesman David Ainsworth told AFP it will resume at a later date to consider outstanding issues. The conference, the biggest meeting of its kind yet, with around 23,000 registered delegates, was tasked with assessing, and ramping up, progress toward an agreement reached in Canada two years ago…  that $200 billion per year be made available to protect biodiversity by 2030, including the transfer of $30 billion per year from rich to poor nations. …That turned out to be a bridge too far.

Related coverage:

• UK Guardian: Cop16 ends in disarray and indecision despite biodiversity breakthroughs
• NY Times: COP16 adopts a way to compensate for the use of genetic information but fail to make headway on broader funding

CALI, Colombia — Delegates on Saturday agreed at the UN conference on biodiversity to establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous peoples in future decisions on nature conservation, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize the role of the descendants of some regions’ original inhabitants in protecting land and combating climate change. The delegates also agreed to oblige major corporations to share the financial benefits of research when using natural genetic resources. Indigenous delegations erupted into cheers and tears after the historic decision to create the subidiary body was annouced. It recognizes and protects the traditional knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples and local communities for the benefit of global and national biodiversity management, said Sushil Raj, Executive Director of the Rights and Communities Global Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Negotiators had struggled to find common ground on some key issues in the final week.

Scientists from the Rwanda Forestry Authority have discovered two types of trees that could produce clean electricity, providing power to isolated communities. Rwanda aims to achieve complete electricity access by 2030, yet rural regions still need more power availability. In response, scientists are investigating the possibility of producing electricity from biomass sourced from sustainably cultivated plants, evaluating the energy capacity of different tree species. Bonaventure Ntirugulirwa, a senior researcher spearheading the initiative, mentioned that biomass has mostly been overlooked, even though it has the potential to serve as a high-energy substitute for traditional fossil fuels. …After examining the biomass potential of various rapidly growing trees and shrubs, the researchers pinpointed Senna siamea and Gliricidia sepium as top contenders for electricity production. The dense wood and elevated calorific values of these trees ensure they burn effectively, offering a high-heat option compared to fossil fuels.

Global demand for forest biomass is surging, but the financial incentives offered to projects that burn wood for electricity are under fire on the international stage in Cali, Colombia. In many countries, including Canada, biomass electricity generation is included in the sustainable, clean energy toolbox, because forests can regrow over time… However, biomass critics say this logic is flawed and point out that most of the world’s forests are already being over-logged and ravaged by fire. Canada’s forests now emit more carbon than they can absorb. Harvesting wood for pellets to be burned risks intensifying and expanding industrial logging, which can result in deforestation and degradation of forest ecosystems. This runs counter to science that says preserving forest ecosystems is key for both climate and biodiversity. Activists at the ongoing United Nations biodiversity negotiations urged world leaders to make ending subsidies for biomass supply and power generation a priority.

Air New Zealand, in collaboration with LanzaJet, has announced promising initial findings from a joint feasibility study investigating the use of woody waste and low-value wood products to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in New Zealand. Unveiled with support from the New Zealand Government, Scion, Z Energy, and WoodBeca, this project could set a new benchmark in aviation sustainability by tapping into New Zealand’s renewable resources to locally produce an alternative to fossil-based jet fuel. The study’s results highlight the potential for SAF production to meet up to 25% of New Zealand’s domestic aviation fuel demand, fostering economic growth, job creation, and enhanced fuel resilience.

Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water is developing voluntary greenhouse gas accounting standards for agriculture, fisheries, and forestry sectors as farmers face higher pressure from supply chains and the finance sector to provide accurate GHG emissions data. The government’s obligatory climate-related financial disclosures, traceability requirement for market access, as well as the employment of science-based emissions reduction targets are some of the factors driving this demand. These reporting standards aim to enhance the accuracy and consistency of accounting methods and tools, fine tune GHG accounting at the farm level for greater market access and further mitigation action support, and finally reduce the reporting burden on farmers and landowners by giving them reliable tools to understand their emissions.