100 NGOs urge EU to end use of biomass-based biofuel as renewable fuel

In Belgium, EuroNews reports that a network of over 100 NGOs is calling on the European Union to end the use of biofuel as renewable energy. The Forest Defenders Alliance, an initiative to amplify the voices of NGOs in Europe and in countries with forests that are threatened by EU policies, wants Brussels to protect forests, rather than encourage more logging in order to produce biomass fuel that is burned in power plants.

The EU counts biomass fuel as a zero-carbon renewable energy, but environmentalists want it to be excluded from this criteria they say because burning wood emits more carbon pollution than burning coal and regrowing trees, which NGOs say takes decades to centuries to offset the pollution.