Online event: Forest biomass for decarbonisation
The trade-off between forest wood for biomass energy and as an instrument for carbon sequestration.
Language: English
Biomass plays a prominent role in European decarbonisation policies as a long-established renewable energy source. However, harvesting wood immediately reduces the forest carbon sink, so the net effect may not deliver the required emissions reductions. Forest advocates have long called for an end to financial support for the energy use of woody biomass, and for it to no longer count towards renewable energy targets, in order to conserve forests for their broad and critical services such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity, or health and recreation.
In the autumn of 2022, the European Parliament held an unprecedented debate on declassifying woody biomass as renewable energy in the process of updating the Renewable Energy Directive, but ultimately voted against it. However, many see this as a first step towards removing woody biomass from the scope of the Renewable Energy Directive.
The aim of this workshop is to provide a balanced debate about the role forests should play in contemporary climate policy. REKK aims to present speakers who summarize the state of policy thinking with arguments for and against major changes to it. Also, REKK presents its recently developed policy analysis tool, which is designed to optimize forest carbon sinking in a cost-efficient and effective way.
Speakers include:
- Biljana Kulišić, DG ENER, Unit C.2, European Commission
- Linde Zuidema, Senior Consultant at Trinomics
- Daniel Reinemann, Policy Officer, Bioenergy Europe
- Viktor Rácz, senior research associate, REKK
Participation in the online workshop is free of charge, registration is required.