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The marketing campaign group ‘Lower Carbon Not Forests’ has shared a brand new infographic that tells the story of the UK authorities’s hypocrisy on forest conservation and local weather — displaying that proper now, timber want our voices.
Lower Carbon Not Forests is a hard-hitting marketing campaign from a coalition of environmental advocacy teams to show the UK’s wasteful subsidies for corporations that burn timber for electrical energy and to place strain on policymakers to help reform.
The multi-channel group, led collectively by Biofuelwatch, Dogwood Alliance, the Pure Assets Protection Council and the Southern Environmental Legislation Centre, requires an finish to biomass burning subsidies, redirecting billions of kilos to fill a “vital funding hole” for different renewable power options, similar to wind and photo voltaic.
Watch the infographic beneath…
Based on the coalition, the UK is the most important consumer of biomass electrical energy in Europe, backed by greater than £1 billion (€1.1 billion) per 12 months in authorities subsidies, paid out by way of a payment on power payments. The group says burning wooden in energy stations is “no higher for the local weather than burning coal”.
Lower Carbon Not Forests’ new infographic contrasts the realm of forest the federal government pledges to plant with timber as a part of its “Nature for Local weather” fund with the realm of forest that may have to be minimize down over the identical interval to provide the UK’s large demand for wooden to burn as gasoline for electrical energy.
A name for motion to assist our timber
A latest YouGov polling relating to public attitudes within the UK about biomass power confirmed that fewer than one in 4 Britons (23%) suppose electrical energy generated by burning wooden from forests must be categorized as renewable power, whereas giant majorities (upwards of 80%) again the Authorities supporting wind and photo voltaic power.
85% of respondents anxious in regards to the affect on wildlife if timber in forests are being minimize all the way down to generate electrical energy – the most important end result within the survey.
And because the COVID-19 lockdown has been eased, 82% of respondents additionally agree that the UK ought to intention to protect enhancements in air high quality by switching to power sources with no related air air pollution emissions. Burning biomass from forests in fact releases harmful air air pollution like particulate matter, along with local weather air pollution.
Lower Carbon Not Forests, is rallying constituents to contact their Member of Parliament and press for an finish to subsidies.
Their marketing campaign’s name to motion urging MPs to redirect billions in biomass subsidies to actual clear and renewable power like photo voltaic and wind will be discovered right here.
In instances of direct motion, activists have additionally begun lining the prepare tracks carrying wooden pellets to the Drax plant, an indication of defiance in opposition to this soiled power.
Undermining environmental conservation and local weather targets
The Environmental Audit Committee just lately accomplished a name for proof on biodiversity and ecosystems, searching for enter on the way it can higher combine and improve its efforts to deal with biodiversity, local weather change and sustainable improvement.
These are laudable targets. However the UK authorities’s tree planting and worldwide forest conservation efforts are dwarfed every year by the dimensions of dangerous subsidies that it continues to offer power corporations that import wooden from abroad forests to burn for electrical energy below the guise of producing renewable power.
This isn’t solely wasteful financially, however counterproductive to environmental conservation and local weather targets. Take into account the next:
- Per her response to a query tabled by Rosie Cooper MP relating to native tree planting, the Secretary of State for Setting, Meals and Rural Affairs acknowledged that, within the 2020 Price range Assertion, the federal government introduced a £640m “Nature for Local weather fund” for England. Based on the announcement, this may imply an extra 30,000 hectares of timber (roughly 300 sq. kilometers), “a forest bigger than Birmingham,” over the subsequent 5 years.
Nonetheless, in 2019, wooden pellet sourcing for Drax’s coal-to-biomass conversions at Drax Energy Station alone required sourcing of over 7 million tonnes of wooden pellet, roughly 4.5 million tonnes of which had been sourced from forests within the southern United States.
Supplying this demand required the harvesting of roughly 340 sq. kilometres of forests within the area. At this degree, 5 years of provide thus requires 1,700 sq. kilometers of harvesting, equal to 6 occasions the realm the UK intends to plant by way of the “nature for local weather fund.” And once more, Drax really imported greater than 1.5 occasions that from all sources in 2019, so the whole forest harvest affect is definitely a lot better.
- And at last, per the response Ms Cooper acquired from the Secretary of State for Worldwide Improvement, DFID stories that it has invested £57.2 million (2017-18), £53.1 million (2018-19) and £50.8 million (2019-20) in bilateral forest programmes over the previous three years. This implies the UK’s annual abroad forest conservation funding is lower than 4% of what it spends to subsidise importing wooden from abroad forests to be burnt for power every year.
Taken collectively, it’s clear that billions in UK biomass subsidies crowd out different efforts at forest conservation.
Burning timber
Biomass subsidies help the harvest and burning of huge portions of timber from ecologically delicate forests all world wide for electrical energy, contributing to their degradation and endangering the wildlife that rely on them.
Placing an finish to as soon as and for all to the UK’s damaging legacy of reliance on biomass electrical energy is vital to serving to reverse the biodiversity disaster and have to be on the core of how the UK bolsters its conservation insurance policies and invests in a very inexperienced restoration from the COVID-19 pandemic.
What’s at stake right here is upwards of £1 billion per 12 months, at present paid to corporations that burn timber for electrical energy, however totally on the Authorities’s discretion to part out and reinvest in actual local weather and conservation options.
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This article raises important points about the UK’s biomass energy policies. It’s concerning to see the disparity between funding for tree planting and subsidies for burning wood. A more balanced approach could benefit both energy needs and conservation efforts.
I appreciate the detailed analysis regarding the UK’s forest conservation efforts versus biomass subsidies. This issue deserves greater attention, as it impacts wildlife and biodiversity significantly while challenging our definitions of renewable energy.
This article sheds light on an often-overlooked aspect of energy production. The call to action for ending biomass subsidies is crucial, especially considering how much they contradict environmental goals set by the government itself.
The statistics provided about public opinion on biomass energy are quite revealing. It seems there is significant support for renewable sources like wind and solar, which suggests a need for policy changes that reflect these views.
It’s intriguing to note the environmental impacts of biomass burning mentioned in this piece. The shift from coal to biomass may not be as beneficial as intended, highlighting a need for reevaluation of renewable classifications.