Brussels, 17/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Not counting carbon emissions from burning biomass, as is the case in EU legislation, constitutes a major loophole in the European Emissions Trading System (ETS). According to a study published on Tuesday 17 March by three environment NGOs, this problem needs to be rectified.
The study was carried out by Transport & Environment (T&E) and the European Environment Bureau (EEB) and demonstrates that between 90 and 150 million tonnes of CO2 resulting from burning biomass with no climate safeguards are 'labelled' carbon neutral in Europe and thus do not require carbon permits under the EU emissions trading system (ETS).
This loophole means that 7% of annual emissions covered by the ETS (three times the level of CO2 emissions by Portugal in 2012) are not included. The NGOs call on the EU to rectify this problem when the ETS is reformed, in the interest of protecting the climate and the financial interests of the different countries. The study also shows that this loophole costs EU member state governments a total of between €630 million and €1 billion a year through lost revenues from the ETS.
Carlos Calvo Ambel, energy policy analyst at T&E, said, “Giving biomass a zero-rating in the ETS is like signing a blank cheque - you never know what you are going to get. The absence of sustainability criteria and full carbon accounting for biomass frequently leads to more carbon emissions”. Sini Eräjää from the EEB added, “By closing this loophole, the EU can remove perverse incentives for biomass which emit more carbon than they save”. The NGOs are calling for sustainability criteria to be applied to all uses of biofuels.
The fact that EU legislation calculates the zero contribution from indirect land-use change (ILUC) is based on the observation that CO2 emissions have been reduced during the period in which the plants were grown. Science, however, has demonstrated that these emission reductions are not always effective and that the period between the time the CO2 emissions are caused through combustion and the time when it is recaptured by plant growth is possibly between a period of between 0-500 years.
According to the study, reassessing the zero-rating would allow the EU ETS to better reflect the net effect of the production and use of biomass, with only real emissions savings being allowed to count for zero in the ETS. It would also help to both get rid of perverse incentives that could lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions and solve the existing surplus of allowances in the system.
Land-based biomass can also bring about the same 'indirect land-use change' (ILUC) that the EU is struggling to address under the reform of the biofuels policy to make them more sustainable and climate friendly. There are currently no sustainability criteria for biomass in the EU renewable energy legislation.
The study points out that there is also little information on where the biomass comes from. 98% of pellets from the growing US wood-pellet industry go to Europe, despite the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) warning that large-scale clear cutting, old-growth logging and wetland logging is widespread and unregulated in the US. The NGOs point out that according to European Commission estimates, biomass consumption is projected to increase by 40% by 2020, according to the Commission, and at least 15% will have to be imported, weakening Europe's energy independence. (Aminata Niang)