With 2023 expected to see record amounts of brown macroalgae washing up on Caribbean beaches, green entrepreneurs in Mexico are turning waste into biogas, biofertilizer and even faux leather; all despite big bureaucratic hurdles.
At the start of the 2000s, the search for a “miracle” biofuel led to a stubby Latin American tree. But jatropha’s boom went bust when high yields and big eco benefits failed to materialize. Now some say it’s set for a return.
Indonesia's plans to develop a coal gasification industry have been thrown into doubt following the withdrawal of a major foreign investor. During an investor call in late March, U.S.-based Air…
Biofuels have long been held up as a viable high-tech climate solution, but in practice they’ve often not lived up to their promise, causing environmental harm and in some cases being more carbon-intensive than fossil fuels.
JAKARTA — Activists have lambasted the Indonesian government’s proposal to include gas in its clean energy transition program funded by industrialized countries. They said the inclusion of gas-fired power plants…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) In 2020, the Indonesian government set a goal of restoring 600,000 hectares, or nearly 1.5 million acres, of mangrove ecosystems by 2024. Progress toward that goal…
From rising sea levels to scorching heat waves, the planet has one foot in the climate grave. But a new report says three targeted policy interventions could lead to positive…
Tropical forests play a key role in our efforts to stabilize the global climate. As a readymade means of ameliorating our continued greenhouse gas emissions, tree-clad tropical landscapes provide us…
Last July, as the Ukraine war raged, the EU barred all Russian woody biomass imports; even as South Korea took in Russia’s supply. Illicit woody biomass may also still be flowing to the EU from Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.
An existing regulation designating the burning of forests to make energy as being renewable has been reversed in Australia. That decision seems unlikely to alter the EU’s heavy commitment to biomass burning.
JAKARTA — Fully protecting Indonesia’s remaining peatlands and mangroves is the key to achieving the government’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade — and…
In 2016, Bangkok opened its first waste-to-energy incinerator in the district of Nong Khaem, turning up to 500 metric tons of solid waste into electricity every day. The 9.8 megawatt…
Policymakers could finalize revisions to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive by year end, even as forest activists offer new evidence denouncing wood pellets as an energy source, and calling for an end to subsidies.
A biomass industry insider tells Mongabay in exclusive interviews that Enviva, the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy, is disingenuous in its green, eco-friendly claims to the public and stockholders.
JAKARTA — Indonesia will continue building new coal-fired power plants, despite a recent $20 billion deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries to help it transition to clean energy.…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has struck a historic deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries on a $20 billion financing package to help it speed up its transition from fossil…
ORLEANS, California—An elemental smell wafts through the Klamath mountains in early autumn—woodsmoke. Despite the U.S. Forest Service’s intermittent bans on lighting fires in the forest, the Karuk Tribe is maintaining…
Players in the carbon offset market say they offer a solution to the climate crisis. When an emitter releases carbon in one place, they can support a project elsewhere that…
JAKARTA — Norway has agreed to pay Indonesia $56 million in a climate agreement between the two countries, as Indonesia has succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissions by preserving its…
The multibillion-dollar global console gaming industry is linked to environmental harm throughout the life cycle of these wildly popular devices. But the industry is taking some steps to curb its excesses.
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s plan to retire its coal-fired power plants and replace them with renewable energy by 2050 is not only feasible, but, when environmental costs are considered, will be…
JAKARTA — Indonesia's four largest banks handed out loans totaling $3.5 billion of direct loans to the coal industry from 2015-2021, despite their stated commitments to sustainable financial practices, a…
On Sept. 20, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, or EDGAR, a scientific group associated with the European Commission, released its 2022 report detailing the CO2 emissions of every…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s program to wean itself off coal by burning it alongside progressively higher amounts of woody biomass will threaten more than a million hectares of rainforest and result…
While forest advocates had high hopes, the EU parliament voted this week not to declassify woody biomass as a renewable energy source, paving the way for more EU, U.S., and Canadian forests to be turned into wood pellets and burned.
The death knell of coal has been proclaimed, but policy loopholes in Asia allow for cofired power plants, where coal and wood are combined as fuel. Both fuels produce lots of carbon emissions, but those from wood aren’t counted.
A new study has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life will be at high or critical risk by the year 2100 if climate change accelerates along a high-emissions…
In the Indonesian village of Kun-kun, where illegal loggers once cut mangroves for timber, a new livelihood has come to the fore: crab fishing. “Without the mangroves, the crabs cannot…
The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
