A dangerous fuel threatens to undermine the world’s renewable energy promises

A flurry of announcements and pledges marked the first several days of the UN climate summit in Dubai. Notably, a call to triple renewable energy expansion by 2030 — signed by over 100 countries, including Canada — is being pushed by some world leaders to be a binding goal in the final agreement.

While this commitment represents ambition for some, people from around the world attending COP28 with an eye to human rights and forest destruction (myself included) are warning about a powerful impostor in the renewable energy sphere: forest biomass. With devastating impacts on communities, biodiversity and the global climate, the growing forest biomass industry could turn clean energy dreams into nightmarish destruction.

The forest biomass industry has ballooned in recent years with the help of massive subsidies geared toward the green energy transition. Members of the industry like U.K. energy giant Drax, which owns the majority of facilities in British Columbia, produce wood pellets that are burned by power utilities overseas to generate electricity.

Countries around the world — including Canada, the United States, the U.K., Japan and members of the European Union — are promoting burning wood pellets made from forest biomass as a “clean” energy solution. However, forest biomass is anything but a safe alternative to fossil fuels.

Burning wood to generate electricity, often in existing coal power plants, produces high carbon emissions — as high or higher than coal. What’s more, the need to maintain a steady supply of wood pellets is leading to the destruction of vital, carbon-rich forests.

The scale of damage caused by the forest biomass industry has been made nearly invisible at every level. Improvements are needed to ensure carbon accounting systems more accurately reflect the emissions associated with biomass, which is an even dirtier fuel than coal by many measures.

Whether the pledge to increase renewables by 30 per cent will effectively cut carbon emissions depends on how renewable energy is defined. Right now, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change includes both genuinely low-carbon solutions like wind and solar alongside sources of energy like forest biomass. The need to more accurately report emissions aligns with the first-ever global stocktake now being undertaken by delegates in Dubai to assess progress toward reduction targets outlined in the Paris Agreement.

At a COP28 event on Dec. 5 for the “energy, industry and just transition” themed day, Drax and other big biomass energy representatives continued to obscure the impact of this industry and push their agenda to burn forests as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Drax branding around a U.K.-sponsored renewable energy pavilion read “capture the opportunity,” referring to (unproven and problematic) carbon capture technology. But, the presence of Drax and other bioenergy interests at the global warming summit shows it is actually governments that have been captured.

Underpinning Drax operations are massive subsidies from the U.K. government to the tune of £2 million a day. Canada has also used public funds to bolster the green image of forest biomass energy. Just last month, Canada expanded its “clean” energy tax credits to include biomass.

There is no doubt that we need a renewable energy transition. Forest biomass may appear to offer an easy solution — and one that keeps companies like Drax in business — but it is a huge problem for our collective ability to address the climate crisis in a just way. That is why as COP28 draws to a conclusion, the Biomass Action Network, representing organizations across six continents, is sounding the alarm in Dubai.

Canada is the third largest exporter of forest biomass in the world and with the U.K., co-chairs the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which has promoted biomass as a way to get off coal.

Instead of introducing new subsidies that prop up a false climate solution at home, countries like Canada should intervene at COP to explicitly denounce forest biomass, call for much-needed changes to global carbon reporting and accounting to accurately reflect emissions, and uphold a just transition for communities everywhere.

Tegan Hansen (she/her) is a senior forest campaigner for Stand.earth and a member of the EPN’s Global Biomass Action Network. She lives on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories (Vancouver, B.C.) and is a delegate to COP28 in Dubai.