CEPF Secretary General, Fanny-Pomme Langue, was invited to present European forest owners’ views on RED III. Ms. Langue conveyed forest owners’ incomprehension regarding the primary biomass related measures discussed under RED III. For forest owners, bioenergy markets create income from forest biomass that can’t be used for other purposes. Managing a forest is costly and with this income they can cover part of the costs and keep managing their forests. Given this and the fact that there are no forest owners managing their forests only for bioenergy purposes, given the already existing many legal requirements set at national and regional level, and given the current energy crisis, the question is: is the political discussion and the RED III proposal in line with reality on the ground?, Ms. Langue ended.
MEP Simone Schmiedtbauer (DE, EPP), called for more coherence and synergies in the EU policies. We cannot on the one hand talk about need for green Europe and at the same time over-regulate everything, she said. Forests have to be used but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be protected as we can do both but what we can’t afford to do is turning our forests into carbon museums. Biomass is needed for Europe’s energy security and this is not the right time to set new bans and hurdles as we are all painfully aware of how dependent we are on the countries outside the EU for energy supply, MEP Schmiedtbauer stated.
Michael Obersteiner, Director of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, presented that to limit the global warming to 1.5℃ and to reach the Paris Agreement is not possible without using forest biomass. He underlined that the claim that bioenergy from forests would be worse than fossil fuels is not backed up by any scientific literature and it is even impossible in Europe where we have a forest net gain.
The event was closed by Christian Rakos, President of World Bioenergy Association who concluded with Mr. Obersteiner’s statement that there is no evidence that bioenergy from sustainably managed forests is bad for climate, and added that bioenergy is needed to manage climate change.
Other speakers of the event included Luc Pelkmans, Technical Coordinator from IEA Bioenergy, Jean Marc Jossart, Secretary General of Bioenergy Europe and John Bingham, Special Advisor from Hawkins Wright.
Watch the recording of the event here.
