The U.S. Inflation Reduction “Climate Bill” signed into law in August relies heavily on tax incentives and subsidies to promote corporate investment in green energy. A recent New York Times report on clear cutting ancient forests in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia is a cautionary tale about this approach. European policies intended to reward companies and countries for going “green” ended up being used to pad corporate profits while the companies, with support from their local governments, evaded the intent of the programs and exacerbated the climate crisis. For the last 250 years, for-profit unregulated capitalism caused the climate crisis. Unfortunately, it appears unlikely that capitalism, even regulated and incentivized capitalism, will solve it.
According to the New York Times, the European Union subsidizes the burning of wood as an alternative to oil and gas in the hope of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The plan was to use recycled and waste material, particularly lumber mill sawdust, to make woodchips and pellets that would be used in power plants and to heat homes. As a result of the subsidies, wood is currently Europe’s largest renewable energy source ahead of more climate friendly wind and solar power. But instead of using waste and recycled material, European companies and countries are leveling ancient forests to harvest wood to be turned into the chips and pellets. Not only are the trees no longer pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, but burning the wood actually releases more greenhouse gas than burning oil, gas, or even coal. Ironically, under the E.U. guidelines, burning their forests counts towards countries meeting their clean-energy pledges.
Finland, Estonia, Hungary, and Romania are some of the biggest offenders. In Romania criminal gangs are reportedly used to protect illegal logging operations and E.U. funds are used to construct roads used to transport the logs to mills and factories where they are ground up into sawdust. Pellets made from trees in Romanian forests are used to fuel power plants in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Poland. More than a third of Italy’s “renewable energy” comes from burning processed wood and the government provides tax deductions to consumers who purchase wood pellet stoves.
When the European Union reaffirmed the burning of wood to meet clean energy requirements in 2018, hundreds of scientists protested against the designation of forests as a source for green energy. The European Union’s logic was that trees could be replanted. The scientists pointed out that even when trees are replanted it takes decades for forests to absorb the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere when the trees were burned.
The European Parliament is debating ending some of the subsidies and prohibiting countries from burning trees and leveling forests to meet their clean energy targets. But Central European and Nordic countries are fighting to prevent the changes. Latvia claims that changing the guidelines would have a “negative impact on investment and businesses.” Denmark is demanding that decisions on fuel use be left to individual governments. The Finland ministry for agriculture and forestry is actively promoting the leveling and burning of forests as a path towards “domestic renewable energy and self-sufficiency.”
Unfortunately there is a lot of bad news recently. Global sea level may rise faster than previously predicted. Scientists with the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) believe there will be a half a meter (1.6 feet) rise by 2050, a two meter (6.6 feet) rise in sea level by 2100 and 5 meters (16.4 feet) rise by 2150 if fossil fuel emissions continue to climb at current rates. UnitedNations General Secretary General António Guterres warned this week “We have a duty to act. And yet we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction.”
As capitalism and nationalism sidetrack the struggle to save human civilization and time to respond is wasted, education will not be sufficient to prevent catastrophe, but it is necessary. Currently, students in the United States spend on the average only two hours every school year learning about the climate crisis and according to a UNESCO report half of the national curricula across the global to do not include any references to climate change. The National Wildlife Federation and Bard College’s Sustainability program are partnered in a campaign, #Teach10Hours4Climate, to increase instruction on climate change in United States schools to a minimum of ten hours a year. Teachers can sign the pledge at their website and download a teaching guide with activity sheets and links to curriculum resources.
Follow Alan Singer on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlanJSinger1