Chapter 11 The EU renewable energy policy and its impact on forests

The European Union’s (EU) actions in increasing the use of renewable energy and decreasing greenhouse gas emission includes the Renewable Energy Directive, which defines the various Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The most important element of RES is wood-based biomass, which accounts for over 60% of all EU domestic biomass supplied for energy. The sustainability and carbon neutrality of primary woody biomass for energy have recently been widely questioned. According to a group of plaintiffs, who took the EU to court, burning firewood shall not be treated as renewable energy, because it is not a solution leading to meet the climate and biodiversity targets. While the territory of forests increases in Europe, the area cover only measures the quantity of forest land use category. Even the EU’s Joint Research Centre found significant problems with the conservation status and resilience of Europe’s forests. It is these and other concerns that led a consortium of NGOs and policy think tanks to mount a legal challenge to the use of EU sustainable finance for forestry and bioenergy, claiming such funding was unscientific, contrary to the provision to avoid significant harm in the EU’s own Taxonomy Regulation, and would increase rather than mitigate carbon emissions (Partnership for Policy Integrity 2022). Harvesting that considers the growth of increment as the main indicator of sustainability is not a solution for considering forest biomass as renewable. This chapter looks at how the increasing use of forest biomass contribute to the current status and trends of forests in Europe and outlines policy recommendations to improve the situation.