Bioenergy Harms European Forests and Undermines EU Forest Protection

The European Union has ambitious plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. It also wants to protect and restore forests across Europe. It has set a new target for all land to absorb carbon by 2030—with forests making significant contributions—introduced a new law under its Forest Strategy to prevent deforestation and degradation, proposed improved monitoring of forests, and is on the brink of introducing a Nature Restoration Law.

As we know, forests play a critical role in addressing climate change. They absorb and store carbon, purify air and water, protect people from increasing floods and rising global temperatures, and provide a refuge for millions of species. 

But the EU’s policy to incentivise the use of forest biomass for energy is in direct conflict with, and will undermine, its efforts to protect forests and meet its climate targets. A carbon accounting error in the EU Renewable Energy Directive—which counts emissions from burning forest biomass as zero in the energy sector because it would be a “renewable” form of energy—has driven a huge increase in harvesting wood from forests across the EU to be burnt in power stations. This error, which fails to acknowledge the time lag between emissions and reabsorption of the original carbon which multiple studies show can be very long—from decades to centuries, has been pointed out for years by hundreds of scientists and environmental experts.

Member States repeatedly exploit this error in their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs)—the blueprints for cutting national emissions, deploying renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency. One of the greatest threats to the protection of Europe’s forests is the growing use of bioenergy across the Union.

Forests are needed as carbon stores to meet climate targets

Taking wood from forests (to use for energy) is increasing pressure on forests because of the scale of the demand. It is certainly not carbon neutral—it takes decades for trees to regrow and recover the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere when biomass is burned. A review by the Joint Research Council of the European Commission found that the only type of forest biomass feedstock that could provide carbon savings within five years in a forest biomass substituting fossil fuels scenario, without a negative impact on ecosystems or biodiversity, is “fine woody debris” with the condition that their harvest would not undermine forest regeneration. This feedstock represents minuscule amounts of wood compared to overall bioenergy demand, and in any case is not used today because it is not technically suitable for biomass fuels production. But lots of different types of biomass are being harvested across the EU (and imported from other countries to it), damaging forests and carbon stocks in Europe and elsewhere such as the USA and Canada.

Satellite analysis shows that the area of annual tree canopy removal in Europe has expanded, at the same time as harvesting intensity has increased (which has in large part been driven by bioenergy). The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change recently identified bioenergy as one of the reasons for the carbon sink in Europe’s forests being reduced.

If the EU does not achieve its goal for carbon storage by forests and land, this could undermine its chances of meeting its emissions reduction goal of 55% by 2030. The carbon dioxide that land is supposed to absorb in 2030 (310 million tonnes) would compensate more than 10% of EU emissions. But cutting down forests and using them for energy will erode their ability to store carbon and put this target at risk.

EU countries’ reports ignore impacts of using forest biomass 

European Union countries are preparing new National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) for 2030. They submitted draft NECPs in late 2023 and final versions are due by end June 2024. The revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) says that these new plans must explain how the use of bioenergy will be compatible with achieving the targets for land absorbing carbon, since natural carbon sinks across the EU are performing badly at the moment).

In fact there are three specific requirements for Member States to include in their NECPs:

1. An assessment of the domestic supply of forest biomass available for energy purposes
2. An assessment of whether the use of forest biomass for energy is consistent with Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) targets and budgets (from 2026 to 2030)
3. A description of national measures and policies ensuring compatibility with those targets and budgets

NRDC has conducted a high-level assessment of whether the draft NECPs meet the  above requirements. It was conducted by an NRDC policy expert assessing the contents of each NECP for the below requirements. Only Austria was omitted, due to lack of a draft NECP.

NRDC’s findings are in the table at the bottom of this blog post. Red indicates that the requirement was not met at all, orange that it was partially met, and green that it was fully met.

The vast majority of the draft NECPs fail to include the required assessment of forest biomass supply nor its compatibility with LULUCF targets. Romania comes the closest  to doing this by explicitly recognising that using woody biomass harms air quality and negatively affects LULUCF carbon stocks. But even that NECP does not meet the full requirements of analysing and quantifying these impacts.

NRDC’s assessment corresponds very closely with the European Commission’s own assessment of the draft NECPs which recommends that the vast majority of draft NECPs need to include this required content in their final versions.

Conclusion

It is highly significant that the great majority of draft NECPs do not provide the assessment required under the revised RED. This is not a mere administrative issue. The fact that none  of them explain how using bioenergy is compatible with protecting forest carbon sinks leads to one conclusion: they simply cannot, because using bioenergy at the current level, and even more at the scale they plan in the future, is not compatible with protecting forests and their carbon sinks.

Member State governments must update their final NECPs to address the requirements of the revised RED. But more importantly and fundamentally, Member States must be frank about the consequences for forests of their current bioenergy plans and revise these plans to ensure that they can actually meet their LULUCF targets.

There are only a few months left to act. Final NECPs must be submitted by the end of June this year. National governments and the Commission must work together to protect Europe’s forests and end the damage being done to them by bioenergy.