AFCA’s submission addresses Terms of Reference Numbers 2, 4 and 5 and focuses on the impact of Federal and NSW state legislation that deems energy from burning wood, and in particular wood biomass from native forests, a carbon neutral ‘renewable’. We provide an overview of the impact and implications of legislation currently enabling subsidisation of native forest bioenergy and fuels.
Assertions made in this submission are based on peer reviewed science compiled in a separate Appendix 1, demonstrating that:
- Emissions from forest biomass combustion exceed those from coal per unit of energy produced; it is not carbon neutral.
- The opportunity cost of logging forests is the immediate release to atmosphere of otherwise safely stored carbon and the destruction of those forests’ full capacity to sequester carbon from the atmosphere for decades at minimum, and up to centuries; which sequestration is referred to in climate science as CDR, carbon dioxide removal. As forest bioenergy is increasingly driving native forest logging this form of energy is dangerous in a climate crisis.
- Forest biomass for energy is the second greatest driver of forest degradation globally.
- Nature Based Solutions are the preferred climate change mitigation pathway as opposed to B.E.C.C.S (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, i.e. replacing fossil fuels with forest biomass feedstock). Nature Based Solutions involves protecting and enhancing the biological integrity of natural systems so that they can withstand climate change impact and continue capturing and storing carbon (CDR). The IPCC now warns that CDR must accompany emission reduction, thereby rendering attempts to lower emissions, through sustainable energy alone, futile, without forest protection and restoration.
- Forest biomass energy/fuel carbon emission accounting is flawedSubmission into Inquiry re Sustainability of Energy Supply and Resources NSW