Forest policy Wood cannot be considered a renewable energy, the European Parliament’s committee said: this is what it is about

Chief Negotiator Nils Torvalds (r) is sure that the position of the Committee on the Environment will change in Parliament’s plenary vote.

Brussels

What kind can wood be burned for energy? Another forest buzz in Finland has emerged from the recent policy of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee.

The EU is currently updating the sustainability criteria for renewable energy as part of its major climate package. It also means that the EU wants to ensure that any mass from nature is not turned into energy so as not to harm nature.

Following the vote, Parliament’s Committee on the Environment stated on Thursday that forest energy cannot be considered as renewable energy and cannot be counted towards the national renewable energy quota. The strict policy struck many in Finland, where much of the renewable energy comes from wood.

Committee on the Environment The chief negotiator is the Finnish MEP Nils Torvalds (r), who admits that he has had to give up in certain matters important to Finland.

Wood could still be burned, but the state could not financially promote its use and it would not help Finland achieve the EU’s ever-tightening renewable energy target.

“If this went through the plenary session of the parliament, which will not happen, then Finland’s carbon neutrality targets would have to be recalculated,” says Torvalds.

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There was a commotion in Finland about the committee’s strict interpretation. Among other things, the new Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Antti Kurvinen (center) tweeted about the views “as if beaten in the head” and the realities of the committee’s neglect of everyday life.

Basic Finns accompanied with their own tweets.

Participated in the discussion also MTK and among others Elsi Katainen (middle).

In the background is that burning wood for energy is not in good demand in Europe. In Finland, incineration is mainly carried out by the by-products of the forest industry and logging residues, as well as small wood, but in European images, heavy log wood is pushed into the boiler.

Read more: Activists in Brussels want to stop burning wood: “How can Finland be proud of its forests when they are being destroyed all the time?”

The use of wood plays a major role in Finland’s energy supply. In the second year, wood fuels accounted for 28 per cent of Finland’s total energy consumption.

Finland exceeds the targets set by the EU for the use of renewable energy, mainly due to wood-based energy, although wind and solar power are on the rise.

According to Torvalds, subsidies for the use of biomass in many European countries have increased the use of biomass in a way that is not good for the environment.

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“Finland’s forest resources are considerably larger than in any other European country. In many Member States, forests are in pretty poor condition. ”

Committee on the Environment member Ville Niinistö (green) says the committee has taken a very restrictive interpretation of the extent to which biomass can be collected from the forest for incineration. He himself voted in favor of a strict line.

“I personally see this committee as a negotiating position, and let’s see where this goes. My own view is that it would be good to exclude Quality Wood from the renewable energy target, but logging waste and residues could be counted as bioenergy. I am absolutely certain that the outcome of the negotiations will move in that direction. ”

According to the interpretation taken by the Committee on the Environment, the wood obtained from first thinning could not be included in the renewable energy quota. First thinning means removing non-good quality trees from the forest to make the remaining space more robust.

According to Niinistö, first thinning may become a topic of controversy in the parliament, but he believes that they will eventually be included as well.

According to Niinistö, Finnish forest policy should not be directed in the direction of maximizing the energy burning of wood.

“Then the risk is that open felling-intensive agricultural forestry is the mainstream because it relies on first thinnings. It would be better for nature values ​​to use only a by-product as bioenergy. ”

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Committee on the Environment the line is not the position of the whole House, but the plenary will vote on the Renewable Energy Directive in the autumn. The main responsibility for dealing with the directive lies with Parliament’s Committee on Industry, but the sustainability criteria have been decoupled from the Committee on the Environment.

Chief negotiator Nils Torvalds says he was unable to reach a compromise in committee. However, he said “almost everyone” who understood the case understood that the rules would change when the matter came to plenary.

Torvalds says the compromise on further negotiations will start as soon as next week.

MTK’s chairman Juha Marttila considers the committee’s line to be incomprehensible, but does not believe that it will have the support of a majority in Parliament. According to him, the policy, if implemented, would be destructive to Finland’s climate goals.

“Hardly anyone now is so stupid as to oppose the clear-cutting of young forests. Isn’t there a belief that logs are burned in boilers? Energy policy is then wrong if the price of energy is so high that it is worth postponing logs that are five to six times the price of an energy bank. ”

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