Is wood particularly sustainable as an energy supplier? This question is at the heart of a dispute over an EU directive that is to be fixed in the coming months.
The climate debate reaches the forest. So far, the narrative among the general public is quite simple: wood, both as a building material and as a fuel, is one of the solutions to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. Biomass instead of gas power plants, wood as a substitute for concrete. Cutting down forests is sustainable if the appropriate reforestation measures are in place because it is climate-neutral.
So much for the widespread view, which is not only drummed out by many scientists, but also in particular by the biomass industry (e.g. pellet producers). Critical scientists, foresters and environmental organizations counter this mantra with a sentence: “The forest is not fuel”.
There is currently a heated debate between these two positions in the European Union: Specifically, this is about updating the “Renewable Energy Directive” (RED), which is intended to tighten limits on the use of biomass. It is disputed which quantities of renewable energy should be anchored as a target by 2030 and where the limit for biomass use should be drawn. And if at all. Meetings at EU level on this topic are scheduled for early February and early March – in the so-called “trilogue” (between the EU Council, EU Commission and EU Parliament) to first clarify the technical and then the political questions.
Against this background, the NGO “Forestdefenders”, together with the German Environmental Aid, organized an event in Berlin to shine the spotlight on the previously less illuminated side of the topic and to explain why the forest is not a fuel.