Biomass Action Network calls for Real Solutions at COP29

“Carbon markets should, per definition, never be seen as climate finance, as they add nothing.”

The Biomass Action Network is a coalition of more than 220 organisations in 59 countries. The organisations all signed on to The Biomass Delusion statement and work to campaign against industrial bioenergy expansion.

The Biomass Delusions states,

Burning forest biomass for energy is not carbon neutral. It immediately emits large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In contrast it takes decades to centuries for forests to regrow and sequester the carbon, which is far too long to effectively contribute to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target.

In the lead-up to COP29, the Biomass Action Network has put out a statement calling for real solutions during the UN climate negotiations that start next week in Baku, in the petrostate of Azerbaijan. The statement also calls negotiators to “Reject carbon markets as climate finance, and instead provide real finance for real solutions.”

Another COP. Another petrostate

Last year’s COP took place in the United Arab Emirates. A petrostate. The only piece of good news that came out of COP28 was the failure to agree on the carbon market mechanisms under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

The BBC reports that “oil and gas accounts for about half of Azerbaijan's total economy and more than 90% of its exports”.

Over the next ten years, Azerbaijan plans to increase its fossil gas production by one-third. Global Witness reports that companies are planning to spend US$41.4 billion extracting gas in the country.

Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, is the chief executive of COP29. Global Witness went undercover as a fake Hong Kong investment firm called EC Capital and offered to sponsor COP29. In return, EC Capital wanted oil and gas deals in Azerbaijan.

Global Witness caught Soltanov on film offering to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals with EC Capital.

Meanwhile, towards the end of what is very likely to be the hottest year ever recorded, the US elected a fascist, who is also a climate denier, as President. In 2017, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement.

This time around Trump has again promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, increase oil drilling, repeal the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, and reduce regulations on emissions and pollution.

With this inauspicious background, here’s the Biomass Action Network’s statement calling for real solutions in Baku.

Biomass Action Network calls for Real Solutions COP in Baku

FOR RELEASE: 7 November 2024

Countries must find real solutions for climate action and climate finance and reject false solutions such as industrial bioenergy, says the Biomass Action Network (BAN) as the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Convention is set to open in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 11.

COP29 will focus on finance, as did the Biodiversity COP16 which was suspended last weekend due to the lack of agreement. Developed countries refuse to commit to sufficient financial support for developing countries. Instead, they promote false solutions like centralised (large scale) bioenergy.

That is why BAN calls on governments to:

• Eliminate subsidies and other government support for false solutions like forest biomass energy. Large scale bioenergy production causes biodiversity loss and triggers more emissions than fossil fuels, yet it is still heavily promoted by many governments, including through massive subsidy schemes.

“Governments at the Biodiversity Summit urged countries to avoid and/or minimise the negative impacts of climate action on biodiversity, prioritising protection and restoration of ecosystems such as forests,” says Peg Putt, co-coordinator of BAN. “All subsidies and other forms of government support for big biomass that relies on logging and burning huge quantities of wood should be phased out as soon as possible.”

• Reject carbon markets as climate finance, and instead provide real finance for real solutions. Faced with a profound lack of agreement on the delivery of public finance, the COP29 presidency has been pushing for a deal to legitimise and expand carbon markets. Such a deal would also unlock significant additional investments in industrial bioenergy projects, while doing nothing to halt the climate crisis since offsets are a compensation for emissions only.

“Carbon markets should, per definition, never be seen as climate finance, as they add nothing. Financing bioenergy through carbon offsets means double trouble, it means supporting an environmentally harmful, false solution under a pretext that it will offset emissions elsewhere, while that offsetting will not even happen,” says Simone Lovera, BAN’s policy advisor, who will attend the Climate COP in Baku.

• Exclude centralised biomass energy generation, co-firing biomass with coal and other false solutions from national climate policies. COP29 will also set the tone for the new Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) that countries must present in the coming months. It is feared many NDCs will be full of false solutions, including large-scale bioenergy, which is already having a devastating impact on both Northern and tropical forests, including in key forest countries like Brazil and Indonesia.

“The policy of the Indonesian government to promote co-firing of coal with biomass is putting 2.3 million hectares of forests at risk. Swapping out some coal for some wood is a false solution with no emissions reduction benefit. It leads to serious negative consequences for the climate, biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, it lacks a rights-based approach, and is justified only by abusing a carbon accounting loophole” says Amalya Reza of Trend Asia, one of BAN’s Indonesian member groups, who will be in Baku as well.