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    • The upfront carbon debt of bioenergy

    The discussion on bioenergy carbon neutrality is fundamental, since the European Union (EU) adopted ambitious policy targets on the use of renewable energy sources and a substantial share of the total renewable energy will come from biomass.

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    In the current climate change policy framework, the use of biomass for energy is considered a carbon neutral source. According to the principle of carbon neutrality, the GHG emissions produced by combustion of plant biomass are assumed to be recaptured instantaneously by new growing plants. This assumption is acceptable when the same amount of biomass that was burned will re-grow in a very short time as for annual crops.

    When the raw material is wood, the time needed to reabsorb the CO2 emitted in the atmosphere can be long, depending very much on the source of wood. This delay can create an upfront “carbon debt” that would substantially reduce the capability of bioenergy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the atmosphere in the short to medium term.

    In the current accounting of GHG emissions in the climate change policy framework, there are two major gaps concerning the use of bioenergy. The first is a gap in spatial coverage. This gap resulted from adoption of an inventory methodology designed for a system in which all nations report into systems in which only a small number of countries have emission obligations, i.e., the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and the Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). The second is a failure to differentiate between a system in which very long time horizons are relevant – efforts to mitigate climate change over the long term – and systems concerned with shorter-term horizons such as the EU 2020 and 2050 targets. Since the KP adopted the UNFCCC Inventory Guidelines without considering these differences, current accounting systems’ difficulties in addressing the time-dependency of biomass’ carbon neutrality can also be traced to this decision.

    Policy approaches currently under discussion that could address the spatial or temporal gaps, at least to a limited extent, include the following:

    1. More inclusive accounting of emissions from the land-use sector
    2. Value Chain Approaches, including use of sustainability criteria
    3. Point-of-use accounting