Burning wood for energy will make global warming worse for decades to come. Anyone who claims biomass at-scale can be ‘renewable’ is ignorant at best, fraudulent at worst. Government subsidies must end.
Over the last two years over one hundred backbench MPs have, through signing letters or applications for debates, indicated that they have severe reservations about biomass. I was pleased to support a report authored by the Institue for Economic Affairs which sought to offer a sensible and judicious contribution to this important discussion.
We should leave trees in the ground and instead focus on increasing tree cover and backing wind, solar and nuclear energy – genuinely clean technologies that will create jobs, end our reliance on expensive fossil fuels, and cut our emissions.
The government is undermining efforts to tackle climate change by subsidising the burning of wood pellets for electricity, according to a new briefing paper from the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs.
The report does well to highlight important concerns about the sustainability of bioenergy, the carbon accounting methodology, and the value for money of subsidising this industry further.
With questions and concerns from a broad spectrum of experts and leading politicians mounting, ministers must look to alternative, cheaper, and proven sources of clean power and negative emissions before they award new enormous subsidies to Drax and future biomass plants.
To read the full report, please visit: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Trees-for-Burning-The-bio…
