Slovakia – Up in Flames By guest author Fred Pearce, author and journalist – article from Fern’s report ‘Up in Flames’ He said he was a forest ranger. But he leaped out of an unmarked car and showed no ID before shouting at us and waving a heavy stick menacingly in our faces.
EU power plants are hungry for U.S. forests Climate Central, an American watchdog, is drawing attention to one of Europe’s most deceptive illusions on climate change. One which arises from a rather convenient legal loophole that treats energy generated from burning wood as ‘carbon neutral’. As Climate Central explains in
Stealing Romania’s last forests – for energy? By Lisa Benedetti, BirdLife Europe Undercover investigators from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have caught Holzindustrie Schweighofer red handed. The Austrian timber and wood processing company have been violating Romanian law; accepting offers to buy illegally cut timber, offering bonuses to those harvesting
Waste wood – to burn or not to burn? By Lisa Benedetti, BirdLife Europe Forests fuel most of Europe’s bioenergy demands. But when it comes to the use of wood as a material versus as an energy source, political and market interests can collide. This is happening in Austria, where
France is set to ignore EU limits on bad biofuels By Faustine Bas-Defossez, Senior Policy Officer, Agriculture and Bioenergy, EEB All eyes will be on finding solutions to fight climate change in the run up to COP21 in Paris later this year. So it is simply astonishing to see that
We need a faster solar energy revolution By Lisa Benedetti, BirdLife Europe Are there better alternatives to bioenergy and fossil fuels? Well, did you know that solar energy is the most abundant energy resource on earth? That 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes our planet continuously – more than 10,000 times the
Group of NGOs speak out – Bioenergy is not renewable When one considers the International Energy Agency’s definition for renewable energy, ‘energy derived from natural processes, like sunlight and wind, that are replenished at a faster rate than they are consumed’, one should think twice about bioenergy being fed by crops
Bioenergy and Europe’s quest for a ‘circular economy’ By Lisa Benedetti, BirdLife Europe Europe is on the move to become a ‘circular economy’ which is more competitive and resource efficient. The goal is a more circular flow of materials and energy so that Europeans use and consume in a way
Biodiesel consumption increased in 2014 Taken from the Transport & Environment Bulletin, September edition. New figures show the amount of biofuels being used for transport in the EU rose by 6.1% in 2014, but the increase is less than the fall in transport biofuels registered in 2013. The rise suggests
