However, some scientists and environmentalists are neither impressed nor encouraged they are expressing deep concern that the binding emissions laws will likely be flawed by a monstrously large carbon-pollution loophole. The reality is quite different and large-scale, with industrial burning of chips and pellets to make electricity, as seen here at the Drax biomass plant in Britain. When the biomass industry hypes wood pellets, people often imagine the product as being consumed in small household wood burning pellet stoves. “Other countries can and must take steps to up their ambitions, too.” “As the first major industrialized country to legislate for a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, the UK is demonstrating the leadership the world so desperately needs,” Baroness Bryony Worthington, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund Europe said in a statement. Given that the national carbon reductions set by the Paris Agreement are voluntary, the fact that UK and EU climate-mitigation strategies may soon carry the weight of law is being cheered by some climate-action advocates. Those nations are meeting in the next two days to discuss the issue. The pronouncement came in response to a directive by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, that all 28 European Union nations set binding 2050 net-zero emissions reduction goals. Last week, the United Kingdom announced plans to pass a national law setting a country-wide target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, to be achieved by 2050. Photo credit: DECCgovuk on VisualHunt / CC BY-ND. The Drax biomass dome, seen here, once burned coal but now burns wood pellets and chips, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. The Drax power stations in the United Kingdom, one of the largest users of woody biomass for energy production. At present, there is no official move to address the biomass loophole. Unless the biomass loophole is dealt with, the risk is very real that the world could easily overshoot its Paris Agreement targets, and see temperatures rise well above the 1.5 degrees Celsius safe limit.That carbon will add significantly to global warming - bringing more sea level rise, extreme weather, and perhaps, climate catastrophe - even as official carbon counting by the UN provides a false sense of security that we are effectively reducing emissions to curb climate change. ![]() That means wood pellets burned today, and in coming decades, will be adding a massive carbon load to the atmosphere. While the cutting of trees to convert them to wood pellets to produce energy is ultimately carbon neutral - if an equal number of new trees are planted - the regrowth process requires 50 to 100 years.But that declaration is deeply flawed, analysts say, due to a long-standing United Nations carbon accounting loophole that turns a blind eye toward the conversion of coal burning power plants to burning wood pellets. The United Kingdom and the European Union are setting goals to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. ![]() By: Justin Catanoso, CEES affiliate and professor of journalism
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