Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

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.

Fonterra has announced plans to convert two of its coal boilers to wood pellets at its Clandeboye site in South Canterbury in 2025. The $64 million investment will cut the co-operative’s overall emissions by 9% with reductions totalling 155,000 tonnes of CO2e each year, the equivalent of removing more than 64,000 cars from New Zealand roads each year.   The project marks a significant milestone in Fonterra’s sustainability journey as it works towards a 50.4% reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, from a 2018 baseline, Fonterra chief operating officer Anna Palairet said. “This conversion project at Clandeboye is another demonstration of our co-op’s commitment to sustainability and climate action and follows successful boiler conversions at our Te Awamutu, and Hautapu sites… Clandeboye has been in operation since 1904, and as one of Fonterra’s largest manufacturing sites employs over 1000 people.

Much has been written over the years about carbon capture and the role it can play in tackling climate change, what about carbon removal? Carbon removal is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away for decades, centuries, or even longer… Marta Krupinska, the co-founder and chief executive of carbon removal market maker, CUR8, said carbon removals are the “space race of the 21st century” in an interview. And while carbon removals were not high on the agenda at the recent COP29 talks in Baku, there was an agreement on Article 6.4 – also known as the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism – which she said will “lay the groundwork” for more success around carbon removal at future COPs.

YICHUN, China — Recently, the photovoltaic (PV) power plant at Longfei Wood Products Factory in Yichun, Heilongjiang Province of China, was successfully connected to the grid. This marks the completion of first HPBC 2.0 distributed PV power plant, now officially put into commercial operation. Yichun, known as “The Forest Capital of China,” boasts a forest coverage rate of 84.8% and a forestry area of 40,000 square kilometers, making it a key national base for the timber industry. The wood products factory relies heavily on power-intensive equipment, such as sawmills, planers, and cutting machines, creating significant electricity demand and operational cost pressures. The Longfei Wood Products Factory PV power plant has an installed capacity of 2.2 MW … and …generates an annual output of 3.2 million kWh, providing electricity for the factory while also yielding annual electricity sales revenue of 1.2 million RMB.

Changes in cloud cover may account for why global temperatures for the past two years have exceeded the predictions of climate models. 2023 and 2024 saw temperature records repeatedly smashed, with both years now showing average temperatures around 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. Climate change plus an El Niño weather pattern are partly to blame, but neither factor fully explains the extraordinary warmth. Now, researchers believe the answer lies in a sharp drop in low-lying cloud cover in 2023. This change reduced Earth’s albedo – the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space – causing an increase in temperatures. Earth’s albedo has been declining since the 1970s, largely due to the melting of polar ice caps, which help to bounce sunlight back into space. But analysis of satellite data by Helge Goessling at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and his colleagues revealed that 2023’s planetary albedo hit a record low.

The United Nations’ market for carbon trading will soon be open for business. Approved at the U.N. climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, last month, it will for the first time give the U.N.’s seal of approval to large-scale trading of carbon credits between nations. …At the front of the queue for selling credits is Indonesia, whose newly elected populist president Prabowo Subianto is reportedly planning to generate billions of dollars in revenues through bilateral deals to sell credits generated in his country’s vast rainforests. …Critics say the new trading market, which is expected to launch as soon as next year, is wide open to the bad carbon accounting and outright fraud that has bedeviled recent company-to-company “voluntary” trades and to double-counting of credits, making a mockery of efforts to slash global emissions.

NEW ZEALAND — The government has announced sweeping changes to limit the amount of full farm to forestry conversions. Farming groups and rural communities have been raising concerns over the amount of productive farmland being converted into forestry for several years now. The new changes include… A moratorium on exotic forestry registrations for Land Use Classification (LUC) 1-5 actively farmed land. …Transitional measures for landowners currently in the process of afforestation who can demonstrate an intent to afforest prior to 4 December 2024. Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Todd McClay said the changes delivered on a key election commitment to protect food production for farmers while providing ETS certainty for foresters. …Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said the changes provided much-needed certainty for participants in the ETS, ensuring that foresters, farmers, and investors could plan ahead with confidence.

Most of the world’s airlines are not doing enough to switch to sustainable jet fuel, according to a study, by Brussels-based advocacy group Transport and Environment, which also found too little investment by oil producers in the transition. The airline sector is calling for more production of the fuel, which can be made from materials such as wood chips and used cooking oil… As it stands, SAF makes up about 1% of aviation fuel use on the global market, which needs to increase for airlines to meet carbon emission reduction targets. The fuel can cost between two to five times more than regular jet fuel. A lack of investment by major oil players, who have the capital to build SAF processing facilities, is hampering the market’s growth, the study says.

Protesters descended on Westminster today to demand that the government stop using taxpayers’ money to bankroll the destruction of forests. More than 100 environmental activists from groups including Axe Drax, Fossil Free London and Greenpeace gathered outside the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, calling for an end to the vast subsidies granted to the Drax biomass power plant. The North Yorkshire plant is Britain’s largest carbon emitter, yet receives almost £1.5 million a day for burning biomass wood chips, a fuel source that Drax claims is “carbon neutral.”… A report by climate think tank Ember found that, in 2023, Drax produced more emissions than four of some of the most polluting power plants in Britain combined.

The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact. After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”… In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Diplomats agreed earlier this month to new rules governing carbon credits. But while they were deliberating, the scientists who defined “net zero” in 2009, found something wrong with the math underlying those debates. “Achieving ‘net zero’ no longer means what we meant by it,” said Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at University of Oxford, an author of a new paper in the journal Nature. Their new analysis skewers an assumption at the heart of how countries and companies track emissions — that a ton of CO2 is the same everywhere, whether it’s dispersed in the atmosphere, embedded in forest wood or pulled from the air and pumped deep underground. That fungibility is the foundation of carbon markets. It lets a ton of CO2 in a forest stand as a fair trade for a ton put in the atmosphere. That rule-of-thumb turns out to be a vast oversimplification that could render many well-meaning net-zero efforts meaningless.