Portugal premier environmental association, ZERO, has joined more than 120 organisations worldwide in declaring that the large-scale use of forest biomass for energy production is a "dangerous illusion."
This record number of environmental organisations in 30 countries state that burning forest biomass does nothing to halt climate change, calling for the end of State subsidies and political support for the large-scale use of bioenergy.
International support came from Greenpeace International, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and the Dogwood Alliance in the USA, Friends of the Earth in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Milieudefensie in the Netherlands, as well as Portugal's ZERO which all claim that buring biomass harms, forests, people, the climate and energy transition.
The manifesto is unveiled at the National Bioenergy Day of the US industrial associations bioenergy sector by promoting the burning of more wood and just weeks after the release of the latest report of the IPCC on global warming of 1.5 degrees. The report highlighted the importance of forests in limiting global temperature increase.
The 123 signatory organizations believe that the burning of timber for large-scale energy production can not be part of a sustainable future. Instead, "we must protect and restore natural forests actually to reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere, supporting biodiversity, resilience and well-being."
Peg Putt, coordinator of the Environmental Paper Network working group, said: "The use of forest biomass represents a huge environmental loss that motivated this strong statement of concern from so many groups. We call on policy makers, financiers, markets and consumers to abandon support for large-scale energy production from forests. "
Unlike investment in low emission technologies, such as wind and solar, "biomass energy entails ongoing feedstock costs and relies on continuous subsidies," claim the environmentalists.
Francisco Ferreira, President of ZERO, said: "In Portugal it must be absolutely clear that the acceptable limit for the use of forest biomass is the use of forest residues, in particular associated with forest cleaning, not promoting the burning of raw material for the timber industry."
The original manifesto and its signatories: http://environmentalpaper.org/the-biomass-delusion/
