Burning Wood as Renewable Energy Threatens Europe’s Climate Goals

The European Union declared this week that it could make deeper greenhouse gas cuts than it has already pledged under the Paris climate agreement. But its scientific advisors are warning that the EU's new renewable energy policy fails to fully account for the climate impacts of burning wood for fuel.

A ranger explains to a group of landowners how maintaining
old-growth forest in the Dürrenstein Wilderness area
 helps Austria meet its climate targets by sequestering carbon. 

By counting forest biomass, such as wood pellets used in power plants, as carbon-neutral, the new rules could make it impossible for Europe to achieve its climate goals, the European Academy of Sciences Advisory Council (EASAC) wrote in a strongly worded statement. 

The council said the renewable energy policy's treatment of biomass is "simplistic and misleading" and could actually add to Europe's greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years.

Read the story by Bob Berwyn from Inside Climate News - “Burning Wood as Renewable Energy Threatens Europe’s Climate Goals.”