Seeing the trees for the forest
The European Commission’s proposal on biomass aims at the wrong target.
The European Union has binding legislation – the ‘climate and energy package’ – that aims to ensure that the EU meets its ambitious climate and energy targets for 2020. As part of the package, all EU member states have to reach their renewable-energy targets. Renewable energy also plays a key role in moving the EU towards a low-carbon economy and addressing concerns related to dependency on fossil fuel imports.
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One of the most abundant and economically viable sources of renewable energy for the future is biomass. In its Energy Roadmap 2050, the European Commission states that the EU’s 2050 decarbonisation objective will require a large quantity of biomass for heat, electricity and transport.
It is also evident that the renewable-energy targets set for 2020 cannot be reached without biomass. It is estimated that more than half of the increased use of renewable energy by 2020 will be based on solid biomass. In the EU’s upcoming 2030 framework for climate and energy, increased use of renewable energy, especially solid biomass, will be a necessity.
The Commission has this year assessed the member states’ progress towards the renewable-energy targets for 2020. The countries we represent – Sweden, Finland and Austria – have very high percentage targets for renewable energy: 49%, 38% and 34% respectively.
We have worked hard to promote renewable energy and have surpassed our interim targets by several percentage points. Forest biomass is one of the factors behind our successes. The use of forest biomass and further increases in its use have required and will require investments – investments that in the energy system are made in a perspective of decades.
The Commission is now preparing a proposal on sustainability criteria for solid biomass used in energy production. Sustainability is of the utmost importance to us. The issue must be addressed in ways that tackle the real problems related to sustainability and that avoid unintended negative consequences. Many member states, including ours, that use significant amounts of forest biomass for energy production have raised concerns during consultations on the proposal with the Commission. We want to raise the following main points:
Any new legislation on the sustainability of bioenergy must address the real problems. European forestry that meets national forestry regulations, as well as national and European environmental regulations, is sustainable – including from a European energy policy point of view. The real challenge is to ensure that the sustainability of imports is at the same high level and to protect unique and threatened environments.
New legislation must not create new barriers to the development of bioenergy markets. If not designed properly, new legislation risks imposing far-reaching and significant administrative burdens on the use of sustainable biomass in energy production. This could have serious consequences for increasing the use of solid biomass in energy production and reaching the targets set in the EU climate – and energy – package and further EU climate and energy goals.
? Sustainability of forest biomass must be tackled in a more systemic way. A tree is not grown for a single purpose. It may be put to different uses for different products – the lower part of the tree goes to sawmilling, the middle part goes to wood pulp, and only the tree crown and branches (if harvested) are used solely for bioenergy. The production of forest bioenergy in Sweden, Finland, Austria and many other European countries is thus normally based on residues from the forest industry. It is simply not a good idea to create specific legislation for a single end-use, in this case forest biomass used for energy production.
The forests of Europe can and must play an increasingly important role in the EU’s competitiveness and climate and energy policies. Sustainably produced forest biomass is already available in the EU as an alternative to fossil fuels in heating, electricity and transport. The growth and competitiveness of this important source of renewable energy must not be jeopardised.
Anna-Karin Hatt is Sweden’s energy minister, Jan Vapaavuori is Finland’s minister of economic affairs, and Niki Berlakovich is Austria’s federal minister of agriculture, forestry, environment and water management.