WPAC Report Climate benefits of biomass energy By Gord Murray n 2014, EU Member States agreed on a new Climate and Energy Framework that sets new targets for the year 2030: (1) at least 40% cuts in GHG emissions (from 1990 levels), (2) at least 27% share for renewable energy, and (3) at least 27% improvement in energy efficiency. To im-plement these targets, the EU is currently in the process of updating its climate and energy policies. Since new policies are to be decided on in late 2016 or early 2017, it is essential that EU policymakers are well informed about the climate benefits of biomass energy. An issue that has been contentious is the carbon neutrality of bio-mass. Last month, the European Forest In-stitute released the report, Forest biomass, carbon neutrality and climate change miti-gation . This report – prepared by 11 sci-entists from Europe, the United States, and Canada: Goran Berndes, Bob Abt, Antti Asikainen, Annette Cowie, Virginia Dale, Gustaf Egnell, Marcus Lindner, Lui-sa Marelli, Davide Pare, Kim Pingoud and Sonia Yeh – reviews various international perspectives and provides recommenda-tions for policymakers. The report confirms that in industrial-ized countries, forest biomass feedstocks typically come from forests managed for the production of pulp and saw logs, and provision of other ecosystem services. Feedstocks consist mainly of sawdust, small diameter trees, and thinnings. In processing feedstocks into bioenergy, sup-ply chain emissions from harvesting, pro-cessing and transportation are just a small fraction of the biogenic carbon flows. With efficient handling and shipping, forest bio-mass transported over long distances can deliver high GHG emissions reductions. I According to the authors, non-GHG factors can affect climate change. The im-pact of changes in land use can impact global and local climate by affecting how much radiation is either absorbed or re-flected. For example, land covered in for-est is effective at absorbing radiation, while land covered in snow will reflect radiation back into the atmosphere. In evaluating carbon balances and cli-mate impacts, the authors argue that the exact timing of CO 2 emissions is less im-portant than how much carbon is emitted in total in the long run. This means that we should focus on how biomass harvesting for energy influences carbon stocks over the long term, since this in turn influences cumulative net CO 2 emissions. There are various methods that researchers use to as-sess the climate change mitigation effects of forest bioenergy including: Definition of a counterfactual no-bio-energy scenario: How do forest markets, forest management, and forest carbon stocks evolve in the absence of bioenergy production? Spatial system boundary: Are carbon balances assessed at the forest stand level or at the forest landscape (system) level? Temporal system boundary: What is the time period of assessment and how does it compare with the forest rotation period? When is the accounting begun in relation to the first harvest for bioenergy? Scope: Are economic and social as-pects included? Is the bioenergy system assessed in isolation or does the study ex-amine how forest management as a whole responds to bioenergy incentives? It is important to understand the ap-propriate context for the chosen method in order to draw the correct conclusions and policy implications. The report discusses how biomass extraction can affect forest management. Reviews have concluded that there are no consistent, unequivocal and universal ef-fects of more intense biomass harvest on forest soils. With respect to water, forest bioenergy systems are judged compatible with maintaining high-quality water sup-plies. As for biodiversity, biomass remov-al, the quality of dead wood left behind is more important for biodiversity than quantity, with larger logs and stumps be-ing more valuable than slash. Stumps and an appropriate amount of residual wood should be left on site. The authors argue that instead of debat-ing about carbon neutrality of biomass, we should be concerned with the net climate change effect of bioenergy in the context in which it is produced. Studies should analyze bioenergy systems as components in value chains or production processes that also produce material products, such as sawnwood, pulp, paper and chemicals. They reported that the efficiency of biomass conversion and the GHG displacement as-sociated with the use of bioenergy and oth-er forest products are very influential on the assessed mitigation value of forest bioener-gy, regardless of feedstock; and the mitiga-tion value grows over time as the quantity of displaced GHG emissions accumulates. Forest bioenergy should be consid-ered as just one of several products in a value chain that also includes material products, such as sawnwood, pulp, paper and chemicals. The forest product port-folio could potentially include bioenergy products that, according to some studies, do not provide near/medium-term GHG savings. But it is not certain that exclud-NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016 8 Canadian BIOMASS
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