Japan is at a crossroads in its controversial use of burning forest biomass to make electricity. While the government and private sector’s understanding of the fuel’s harmful environmental and climate impacts is growing, biomass power plants long in the pipeline continue to come online, requiring ever-greater volumes of imported wood pellets from primary forests in Canada or plantations in Vietnam. Biomass importers and users in Japan are being forced to reevaluate their supply chains after U.S. wood pellet producer Enviva declared bankruptcy in March and prominent ecologists visiting Japan from Canada warned of the pellets’ environmental risks. In addition, new biomass policies from Japan’s biggest banks emphasize the importance of sustainable sourcing, which forest advocates say they hope will encourage biomass users to improve their practices. But ultimately, forest advocates argue that, no matter which supply chain biomass users choose, burning wood to generate electricity is fundamentally untenable, as it puts significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere despite the global need to drastically reduce emissions. In 2022, burning biomass accounted for roughly 6% of Japan’s total CO2 emissions, according to a Japanese climate expert. Still, under international carbon accounting rules, Japan is able to count biomass emissions as zero because trees sequester CO2 throughout their lives. Many experts say this is a misguided policy. Using forest biomass for electricity generation took off in Japan in 2012, when the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry introduced a feed-in tariff (FIT) with 20-year fixed rates to support renewable energy projects. “Before the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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