The biomass industry says that burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral. Environmentalists say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews independent scientific evidence on both sides.
In lead up to EU forest biomass “carbon neutrality” decision, European Commission Exec. VP Frans Timmermans argues in favor of forest conservation, while also favoring burning wood to make “transition” energy.
JAKARTA — Indonesia says it will begin retiring coal-fired power plants for good — while still continuing to build more than a hundred new ones, in the latest mixed message…
JAKARTA — Experts have criticized Indonesian President Joko Widodo for not announcing a more ambitious climate target at last month’s leaders’ summit called by U.S. President Joe Biden. During the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia could lose an area of tropical rainforest bigger than Belgium to oil palm plantations over the next three years without existing measures to slow this loss, activists…
Simple mathematical models suggest overshooting Paris climate accord emission targets for a short time won’t immediately trigger some environmental tipping points, allowing time to act.
The US, China, UK, EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada and others upped their climate ambitions at Joe Biden’s Earth Day Leaders Summit on Climate, but activists pointed to duplicitous policies on forest biomass, coal, and more.
JAKARTA — Indonesia has laid out an ambitious plan to tackle deforestation, the main factor contributing to the country being one of the top global greenhouse gas emitters. But experts…
Last fall, the ruling New Democratic Party promised to defer cutting BC’s last old-growth, but the NDP has so far failed to act and may be embracing the province’s old policy: forestry first; nature and planet a distant second.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced a plan that puts the country on a path toward carbon neutrality by 2070, but activists say the timeframe is too long to…
The Netherlands has voted to stop issuing new subsidies for the burning of forests to generate heat. Though a small win for critics who say biomass is not carbon neutral, the vote could influence a June EU biomass review.
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deforestation rate hit a historic low in 2020, with the government crediting its various policies prohibiting forest-clearing, and experts attributing the trend to more rains, falling oil…
Scientists implore US, EU, Japan, South Korea and UK to stop harvesting forests to turn into wood pellets to burn as fuel at converted coal-burning power plants; a policy the UN has erroneously condoned as “carbon neutral.”
Michael Regan, President Biden’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2019 saw no climate benefit to the production of wood pellets in North Carolina to make energy abroad; what will he do at EPA?
The forest biomass industry is booming, with forests in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Eastern Europe cut to provide wood pellets for burning at former coal power plants in the UK, EU and Asia.
A UN carbon accounting loophole that replaces coal with the burning of forests to make “carbon neutral” electricity is subsidy-driven and will destroy forests vitally needed now for carbon sequestration: Critics.
The Canadian province says 23% of its forests are old growth, but a new study shows only 1% is left. And without immediate protection that could be sacrificed to supply the booming wood pellet biomass energy industry.
Air quality in Metro Manila is returning to its usual noxious levels as COVID-19 lockdown measures are loosened up. But this backslide into business-as-usual can be preempted if local governments…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is set to receive $56.15 million from Norway, the first payment based on the results of the Southeast Asian country’s efforts to preserve its vast tropical rainforests…
A letter from 200 top scientists to congressional leaders strongly urges lawmakers to reject a new draft policy which researchers say would destroy U.S. forests while adding dangerously to carbon emissions.
JAKARTA — Indonesia has little wiggle room to keep clearing its forests if it’s to meet its emissions reduction goals, and will need to step up the conservation of even…
JAKARTA — Indonesia will not set a more ambitious emissions reduction target to counter increasingly dire climate change projections, saying it wants to focus instead on its economic growth. The…
MANILA — The hundreds of islands that make up the Visayas region in the central Philippines are connected by a vast fleet of decades-old cargo and passenger ships. These vessels…
JAKARTA — Mining companies in Indonesia are among those being hit by weakened demand as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the global economy. But the environmental reprieve as a result of…
Scientists are already warning of gradual permafrost CO2 releases; but future abrupt thaws could send huge amounts of methane skyward, causing a surge in global temperatures.
A comment piece published in Nature yesterday urges tropical countries to adopt a tax on carbon emissions in order to halt global warming, species loss, and deforestation. The authors of…
1. Climate change and oceans Climate change impacts on land made almost daily headlines this year: fires, floods, more extreme storms. Equally intense effects are being realized in our seas.…
Analysts are calling the COP25 climate summit in Madrid a colossal failure — undermining the carbon reduction goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, leaving the world in mortal danger.
JAKARTA — Indonesia has launched a campaign that government officials say should boost the reputation of the country’s palm oil industry, even as activists and experts warn it could make…
Two top officials have announced that after 2020 the EU will look at closing the biomass carbon neutrality loophole that has created a boom in emission-producing wood pellets.
