Europe has a long history of playing fast and loose with its emission numbers, especially when it comes to carbon captured by forests. The EU considers burning biomass (read: wood chips) to be carbon neutral, under the logic that if felled forests are replanted, there’s “no harm, no foul” in the long run. That’s a problematic assumption, though, for a long list of reasons. For one, the mere acts of cutting down trees, transporting them, and then processing them into wood pellets all produce emissions. For another, oftentimes the trees that are cut down aren’t replanted, and those purchasing this “green” biomass often don’t do their due diligence to ensure they’re sourcing their wood from responsible foresters.
But as the BBC reports, a group of scientists say that those accounting problems have deeper roots:
View ArticleLeading researchers have condemned attempts to change the way carbon from trees will be counted in Europe…As the European Union tries to put in place wide-ranging plans to restrict future carbon emissions, officials want to ensure that accounting for the impact of forests on the atmosphere should be based on sound science.
To this end they want to cap the use of forestry at the levels seen between 1990 and 2009. If countries want to harvest more trees in future than they did during this period, the loss of carbon would count towards the country’s overall emissions. However several countries including Austria, Finland, Poland and Sweden want a change in these rules so that increased harvesting in the future should not be penalised. […]
[Accounting] for carbon contained in trees is a fiendishly difficult task. Forests can both soak up and emit carbon depending on how old they are, and how they are managed and harvested.