Tag: climate

Forests Could Face Threat from Bio­mass Pow­er “Gold Rush” - by Jamie Doward, The Observ­er Britain’s new gen­er­a­tion of bio­mass pow­er sta­tions will have to source mil­lions of tonnes of wood from thou­sands of miles away if they are to oper­ate near to their full capac­i­ty, rais­ing ques­tions about the claims made for the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the…

Typhoons, Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions and a Real­i­ty Check - by Rachel Smolk­er, Biofuelwatch The lat­est round of cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions are open­ing just as we are hear­ing the sto­ries and view­ing images on the news cov­er­age of the dev­as­ta­tion wrought on the Philip­pines by Typhoon Haiyan (aka Yolan­da).  Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the last round of cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions, COP 18 in…

False Solu­tions for Forests: Bio­mass Ener­gy, Sus­tain­able Tim­ber, and Car­bon Markets - by Jeff Conant, Friends of the Earth In the land­scape of glob­al defor­esta­tion, a ten­sion exists between poli­cies and prac­tices aimed at draw­ing a sharp halt to the exploita­tion of forests and for­est peo­ples and those designed to stim­u­late a vague­ly promised mar­ket shift toward…

Euro­pean Bio­fu­els Vote Deliv­ers ‘Des­per­ate­ly Weak Compromise’ - by Karl Math­iesen, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2013. Source: The Guardian The Euro­pean par­lia­ment has deliv­ered a “des­per­ate­ly weak com­pro­mise” on the future of bio­fu­els in Europe that indus­try says will “cur­tail jobs and investment”. In a tight vote on the use of bio­fu­els in trans­port fuel, the par­lia­ment approved a 6% cap on the…