NGO FACT SHEETS AND REPORTS

The Burning Question: Should the UK end tax breaks on burning wood for power?, Ember, June 2020

Climate finance for bioenergy and tree plantations is fueling conflicts with communities in Brazil, Federica Giunta and Oliver Munnion, FASE (Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional) and Global Forest Coalition, May 2020

Risky business: Canada props up wood pellet export as a false climate solution, Stand.earth, April 2020

Can Biomass Qualify as Renewable Energy? The State of Biomass Policy in South Korea, Solutions For Our Climate (SFOC), April 2020

Can sustainability and greenhouse gas standardsprotect the climate, forests and communities fromthe harmful impacts of wood-based bioenergy?, Global Forest Coalition and Biofuelwatch, March 2020

Forest Management and Climate Change: A New Approach to the French Mitigation Strategy, Gaëtan du Bus de WarnaffeSylvain Angerand, Canopée and Friends of the Earth France, January 2020 

Comments about Graanul Invest compliance with Verification Protocol for Sustainable Solid Biomass SDE  (Dutch biomass sustainability standards), Estonian Fund for Nature, December 2019

Playing with Fire: An assessment of company plans to burn biomass in EU coal power stations, Sandbag, December 2019

Europe’s National Energy and Climate Plans to 2030: Are they fit for purpose?, Fern, December 2019

Improved biomass cookstoves: should they receive climate finance?, Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, December 2019

An investigation into the Global Environment Facility-funded Green Charcoal Project in Uganda, David Kureeba and Oliver Munnion, NAPE (National Association of Professional Environmentalists) and Global Forest Coalition, November 2019

Burnout: E.U. Clean Energy Policies Lead to Forest Destruction, Natural Resources Defense Council, November 2019

Climate Impacts of Industrial Forest Practices inNorth Carolina, Synthesis of best available science and implications for forest carbon policy, Part I, Dogwood Allliance, September 2019

Bioenergy in West Africa: Impacts on Women and Forests, Forest Cover 59, Global Forest Coalition, September 2019

Global Markets for Biomass Energy are Devastating U.S. Forests, Investigation of Enviva’s sourcing practices by Dogwood Alliance, NRDC and Southern Environmental Law Center, June 2019 

The Carbon Impacts of UK Electricity Produced by Burning Wood Pellets from Drax’s Three U.S. Mills, Spatial Informatics Group, commissioned by Southern Environmental Law Center and National Wildlife Federation, May 2019

German climate finance for bioenergy: a threat to forests and climate goals?, Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, November 2018

Are Forests the New Coal? A Global Threat Map of Biomass Energy Development, Environmental Paper Network, October 2018

Fire and Plantations in Portugal: A case study on the risks of using tree plantations to remove carbon from the atmosphere, Oliver Munnion, Global Forest Coalition, September 2018 [Note: Spain and Portugal rely heavily on domestic tree plantations for bioenergy.]

Dirty Deception: How the Wood Biomass Industry Skirts the Clean Air Act, Environmental Integrity Project, April 2018

Covered in smoke, Dr Mike Holland, published by Fern, January 2018 – Report about the air quality impacts of biomass plants in Europe

Something Nasty in the Woodshed: How Biomass Subsidies are Secretly Funding Coal, Sandbag, October 2017

The Sustainable Biomass Program: Smokescreen for Forest Destruction and Corporate Non-Accountability, report by Dogwood Alliance and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), June 2017

Bioenergy in the EU, report by Hands off the Land and Transnational Institute, December 2016

The Black Book of Bioenergy, BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, together with Transport and Environment, November 2016

Money to Burn? The U.K. Needs to Dump Biomass and Replace Its Coal Plants with Truly Clean Energy, report written by Vivid Economics, published by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), October 2016

Forest Biomass Energy Policy in the Maritime Provinces: Accounting for Science, East Coast Environmental Law, December 2015 – This report looks at the carbon impacts of biomass in or from energy from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada

Up in Flames: How biomass burning wrecks Europe’s forests, Fern, November 2015

Bioenergy threatens the heart of North American wetland forests, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), October 2015

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) modelling of carbon emissions from southeastern US wood pellets, May 2015

Climate for deception: Why electricity consumers who care about global warming and air pollution need FTC protection from biomass industry greenwashing,Kelly Bistow and Mary Booth, Partnership for Policy Integrity, July 2014

A new look at land-grabs in the global South linked to EU biomass policies, Biofuelwatch, June 2014

A calculation of the EU Bioenergy land footprint – Discussion paper on land use related to EU bioenergy targets for 2020 and an outlook for 2030, by Liesbeth de Schutter and Stefan Giljum, Institute for the Environment and Regional Development Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe, May 2014

See here for a summary briefing of the above report by Friends of the Earth Europe

Trees, Trash, and Toxics: How Biomass Energy Has Become the New Coal, by Mary S. Booth, Partnership for Policy Integrity, April 2014

Biomass Sustainability Standards – a Credible Tool for Avoiding Negative Impacts from Large-scale Bioenergy?, joint briefing by Biofuelwatch, Global Forest Coalition and Econexus, January 2014

Report by Global Forest Coalition and Biofuelwatch: Wood Bioenergy: Green Land Grabs For Dirty ‘Renewable’ Energy

Biofuelwatch Report: Biomass: The Chain of Destruction (including the case report Plantations for Energy: A Case Study of Suzano’s plantations for wood pellet exports in the Baixo Parnaíba region, Maranhão, Brazil by Ivonete Gonçalves de Souza  from CEPEDES and Winfridus Overbeek from World Rainforest Movement)

Enviva’s Wood Pellet Mill in Ahoskie,North Carolina Threatens Endangered Ecosystems and Wildlife, NRDC and Dogwood Alliance, August 2013

Biomassacre: How logging Australia’s native forests for bioenergy harms the climate, wildlife, and people, Markets for Change, April 2013

Playing with Fire: Wood pellet fires and explosion,  compilation of accidents between 2008 and 2012, Port Talbot Residents Against Power Stations, 2013

Dirtier than coal? Why Government plans to subsidise burning trees are bad for the planet, RSPB, Greenpeace  and Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, November 2012

Sustainable Biomass: A Modern Myth, Biofuelwatch report, September 2012

Bio-Economies: The EU’s real ‘green economy’ agenda?, report published by World Development Movement and Transnational Institute, June 2012

Bio-Economy versus Biodiversity, Report by the Global Forest Coalition, 25th April 2012

Impact of EU bioenergy policies on developing countries, Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union, European Commission, Policy Briefing, March 2012

The new trend of biomass plantations in Brazil: tree monocultures, Winnie Overbeek, World Rainforest Movement, November 2011

Massachusetts Forests at the Crossroads: Forests, Parks, Landscapes, Environment, Quality of Life, Communities and Economy Threatened by Industrial Scale Logging & Biomass Power, Massachusetts Forest Watch, report, March 2009 – 12 MB file

The Biomass Dilemma, Dr Ivan Gyulai, CEEweb, 2008