Europeans Are Burning Bushes to Hold Heat

Prior to now few many years, the European Union has remodeled its power system. In 2005 about 10 % of all power consumed within the EU got here from renewable sources. Final yr that share hit 22 %—it’s one of many primary causes the bloc’s per capita carbon emissions have quickly declined within the twenty first century. This shift might want to ramp up even additional if the EU is to hit its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

However right here’s the bizarre factor. An enormous chunk of that renewable power comes from burning wooden. Almost 60 % of all of the EU’s renewable power comes from bioenergy—a catch-all time period that encompasses any power sourced from one thing not too long ago residing. That features agricultural waste, crops grown for biofuel, and—most significantly—wooden from forestry industries. A small proportion of this biomass is become biofuels or burned in energy vegetation, however nearly three-quarters is burned to heat properties and companies. And we’re not simply speaking about wood-burning stoves. Virtually all of Sweden’s city heating is generated by district heating techniques, which largely burn wooden produced by the nation’s huge and influential forestry industries.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sending power costs hovering this winter, many Europeans need to wooden to supply low-cost, dependable power. In Germany, firewood suppliers are dealing with unprecedented demand, and landowners are reporting that their forests are being plundered by thieves. NGOs have warned that the elevated demand for firewood will result in an increase in unlawful logging and put protected forests in danger. “Individuals are going to burn hundreds of thousands of tons of wooden this winter, and there’s nothing we are able to do about it,” says Martin Pigeon, a campaigner at Fern, a forest-protecting NGO.

A giant a part of the issue is the Renewable Vitality Directive (RED)—a bit of European laws that classifies some wooden merchandise as a renewable gasoline and funnels subsidies towards burning them. However revisions to the RED are presently being negotiated. Adjustments to the laws might deliver these incentives to an finish.

Launched in 2009, the RED was arrange by the EU to direct funding towards renewable power tasks as an alternative of these based mostly on fossil fuels. “The justification for these subsidies and market incentives was to provide renewables a market place in a context the place fossils have been cheaper,” says Pigeon. Since then, the costs of assorted renewables have tumbled approach under these of fossil fuels, however the RED continues to direct billions of euros of funding towards wooden burning, which releases extra CO₂ per unit of power than some fossil fuels, in addition to inflicting dangerous particulate air pollution. “Now we’re a state of affairs the place it’s worthwhile to burn wooden no matter laws, and that’s very scary,” says Pigeon.

This may be about to vary. The RED is presently being revised in a collection of lengthy negotiations between the three totally different components of the EU: the Parliament, Fee, and Council. In September, the European Parliament voted to finish subsidies for unprocessed wooden straight sourced from forests, though a protracted checklist of exceptions contains bushes minimize down attributable to illness, pure catastrophe, or fireplace prevention. Now this laws should be reviewed by EU member states, which is able to resolve whether or not they agree with these exclusions and whether or not they wish to part down the quantity of forest wooden that may depend towards their renewable power targets. The latter level will show controversial. In international locations like Latvia, Finland, and Sweden, wood-based gasoline makes up greater than a fifth of renewable power consumption. Phasing down the renewable standing of wooden would make it a lot tougher for these international locations to attain their local weather objectives.