Tag Archives: Maarten Visschers

Mongabay: Australia rejects forest biomass in first blow to wood pellet industry

What Is The Role Of Koalas In The Ecosystem? - WorldAtlas
As 2022 came to a close, Australia did something no other major economy has done. It changed an environmental policy that essentially stops the wood pellet industry from starting up at any measurable scale. Forest advocates used the image of “dead koalas” in lobbying energy companies to not turn to biomass.

This story demonstrates the significance of a definition, in this case: what exactly is renewable energy? In September, the European Union punted on an opportunity to correct what forest advocates and climate scientists stress is an erroneous definition, that burning forest biomass is a renewable energy source, as this story explains. But as I report here, the liberal Australian government, persuaded by a relentless pro-forest campaign, reversed its existing policy to note that burning forest biomass is not a renewable energy source.

With that definition change, Australia virtually halted the ever-growing biomass industry — which is thriving in the United Kingdom , EU and Asia — from getting started Down Under. It represents a rare global win for environmentalists who have been battling the industry for years. And it raises a vexing question: how can major economies have polar opposite definitions of renewable energy during a climate crisis? And how can the United Nations’ governing body on climate change stay silent on this discrepancy?

This story posted on Wednesday, December 21, a time when people are distracted by the holidays and other grim world news. Yet this story drew more readers around the world than perhaps any I’ve written for Mongabay. Just one tweet by Mongabay drew more than 5000 likes, 1350+ retweets and 115+ comments — numbers I’ve never come close to with previous stories. Mongabay social media coordinator Erik Hoffner tells me the story ranked as the 6th best-read Mongabay story of 2022 and it posted just days before Christmas. It also got a big boost from tweets by noted environmentalist Bill McKibbon, which attracted even more global attention, as did tweets in Dutch posted by forest advocate Fenna Swart.

Mongabay: As EU finalizes renewable energy plan, forest advocates condemn biomass

Wood chips piled in mounds more than 6 meters (20 feet) high cover the lot of an Enviva wood pellet plant in Ahoskie, North Carolina. Enviva claims it uses wood waste and doesn’t use large whole trees in the making of its wood pellets and that it only accepts wood from sites that will be replanted with trees — greenwashing that was discounted this week by a whistleblower who worked for Enviva and also confirmed by a Mongabay onsite investigation. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.

As I was preparing my exclusive whistleblower story, a commentary was released in the journal Nature that sought to weigh in on the late-stage negotiations in the European Union on its Renewable Energy Directive (RED) as it applied to biomass harvest and burning. The headline pretty much summed up the message: EU climate plan boosts bioenergy but sacrifices carbon storage storage and biodiversity.

I interviewed the lead author, Tim Searchinger of Princeton, sought comments from sources in The Netherlands and Germany regarding the state of the negotiations, got one German member of parliament to answer a few questions without attribution, and layered in context regarding European politics and bioenergy industry lobbying.

The result: this story that updates readers on the state of RED negotiations and the latest scientific arguments for limiting biomass harvest and burning, and eliminating billions in subsidies. A reference to my whistleblower story fit into the story as well.