Accounting for Biomass Carbon Emissions
As noted in Chapter 1, the classification of biomass energy as carbon-neutral derives from two assumptions. The first is that the emissions released when biomass is burnt for energy are part of a natural cycle in which, over time, forest growth balances the carbon emitted on combustion. The second assumption, which derives from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reporting rules intended to avoid double-counting, is that even if using forest biomass for energy does result in net emissions to the atmosphere, these emissions are accurately accounted for within the land-use sector. In effect, emissions are assumed to occur at the point of harvest, not at the point of combustion, and thus from the energy-sector perspective, forest-based biomass energy is carbon-neutral.
This second assumption is discussed in detail in the Chatham House paper Biomass for Power and Heat: Impacts on the Global Climate. Accounting for emissions in only one of the two sectors in which they could have been accounted for was a rational decision, but problems arise because of the different ways in which emissions are accounted for in the two sectors. In practice, accounting of biomass emissions in the energy sector is not fully balanced by accounting in the land-use sector, for three reasons.
First, for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013–20) – for which accounting for emissions from forest management is mandatory – parties were given a choice of baselines for the forest management frameworks against which they would measure changes in emissions. Three of the 37 parties to the Kyoto Protocol that adopted targets for the second commitment period chose to use historical baselines (as in other sectors, e.g. energy), and 32 chose business-as-usual baselines, where only changes in emissions compared to what was expected to occur are accounted for (the other two parties chose not to adopt baselines at all). This larger group generally chose business-as-usual baselines to minimize the potential for non-anthropogenic and/or non-additional emissions (for example from fire or disease) entering their national greenhouse gas accounts – but using such a baseline also allows a country to avoid accounting for anticipated emissions resulting from particular forest management practices or policies and measures, such as the use of forest biomass for energy.
Of the 32 that chose business-as-usual baselines, 21 included significant increases in biomass energy use in their business-as-usual projections; the other 11 might also have done so, but have not provided enough detail for a firm conclusion to be reached. In these 21 countries, if increased biomass energy use does occur, it means that emissions from harvesting forests for biomass in line with these projections will count as zero for Kyoto Protocol accounting purposes (if harvesting rates for biomass are higher, the excess will be reported as emissions). They will also count as zero in the energy sector – so in effect, although the burning of biomass is generating emissions, they are not counted against national emissions targets, giving a misleading picture of a country’s progress in meeting its target. It should be noted that any increase in biomass harvesting rates from policies adopted after 2009 – which, for EU member states, includes policies implementing the Renewable Energy Directive – could not be included in the business-as-usual projections and therefore will be reported as emissions in the land-use sector.
As noted in Chapter 2, however, the proposals supported by the European Parliament in September 2017 would change the basis of forest management reference levels for EU member states. In place of the European Commission’s original proposal to adopt a historical reference level based on the 1990–2009 period, MEPs supported an amendment to change this to 2000–12, a period which includes the first few years of measures to support biomass energy that were introduced in order to achieve the EU renewables targets. If this text is finally agreed (at the time of publication, it is still being negotiated among the EU institutions), it would create an additional incentive to increase harvests for bioenergy. This will have no effect on accounting against Kyoto Protocol targets, since the measures would only come into effect after 2020, after the end of the Protocol’s second commitment period, but may have implications for the accounting framework to be adopted under the Paris Agreement.
The second reason that biomass emissions may not be accounted for is because emissions from imported biomass are not accounted for in the importing country’s accounts, since no land-use change takes place within its borders. Whether they are correctly accounted for at all therefore depends on how they are accounted for by the exporting country. This is of most significance, clearly, for countries that import significant quantities of biomass, including, of those considered in this paper, Denmark, Italy and the UK, and to a lesser extent Finland, Germany and Sweden.
The third reason that biomass emissions may not be accounted for is because emissions from biomass imported from non-parties to the Kyoto Protocol (including Canada and the US), or from parties that have not accepted targets under the second commitment period (including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) or from non-Annex B parties (i.e. countries without emissions targets – essentially, developing countries and some former transition economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), will not be accounted for at all within the Protocol’s emissions frameworks – so although importing countries within the Protocol are counting their biomass emissions as zero, they are not balanced by any equivalent reduction in land-use emissions in any other Kyoto Protocol party. This is a particular issue for the UK, which imports the bulk of its biomass from the US and Canada; it is also relevant to a lesser extent to Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which import primarily from Russia, and Italy, which imports from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a non-Annex B party. It is hoped that this problem will be resolved in the framework to be established under the 2015 Paris Agreement, which should cover all countries – though if the US withdraws, as it announced in June 2017, this would still cause problems for countries importing from the US, particularly the UK.
The result of the combination of these three problems is that a tonne of carbon emissions from biomass use in the energy sector is not necessarily accounted for as a tonne of carbon emissions in the land-use sector. There is clear potential for a proportion of the emissions from biomass to go entirely unaccounted for.
‘Missing’ emissions in the nine EU member states
To what extent is this a real problem for the nine countries analysed here? As the previous Chatham House paper on biomass discusses, it is impossible to be precise about the volumes of ‘missing’ – i.e. unaccounted for – emissions. In general, countries’ forest management reference levels do not include enough information on the anticipated impact of biomass energy policies on the quantity of biomass utilized, the origins of the biomass (from, for example, additional domestic forest harvests, increased use of domestic forestry residues and/or imported biomass) and the resulting emissions. Although countries do report emissions from biomass in their greenhouse gas inventories (as a memo item, i.e. not included in their emissions total), some do not provide separate figures for emissions from solid, liquid and gaseous biomass, simply reporting one aggregated figure.
However, it is possible to get a rough idea of the potential scale of the problem by examining countries’ reported emissions from solid biomass, the proportion of emissions that may be associated with imported biomass, and the extent to which the main countries from which they source their supply (including domestic production) treat biomass use in their forest management reference levels.
Tables 14 and 15 summarize this information for 2015, the latest year for which figures are available. For each country, Table 14 includes carbon dioxide emissions from solid biomass used for energy and from total energy use in the country as a whole (as noted above, this figure does not include emissions from biomass) and a calculation of the relative size of these two figures. In 2015, emissions from solid biomass from these nine countries reached 313 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 14 per cent of their energy-related emissions – about the same as the energy-related emissions of France.
Table 14 also includes rough estimates of the proportion of the carbon emissions that derive from imported biomass, divided into imports from countries with targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and imports from those without targets (this assumes that all the imports are used for energy, which is a reasonable assumption for pellets and wood fuel, but less so for chips).
In reality, emissions from biomass will depend on the feedstock, the facility it is burnt in, whether it is used for electricity or heat or both, and many other factors. Countries also use different emissions factors in reports to the UNFCCC.
These import-related emission figures are not precise. They are calculated based on the weight of pellets, chips and wood fuel imported during 2015 multiplied by the following carbon emission factors: 480 kg carbon (1,762 kg carbon dioxide) per tonne of wood pellets, 360 kg carbon per tonne of wood chips and 240 kg carbon per tonne of wood fuel (to allow for higher levels of moisture in chips and wood fuel compared to pellets). The 480 kg carbon figure for pellets is based on reported emissions from Drax in 2013.231 In reality, emissions from biomass will depend on the feedstock, the facility it is burnt in, whether it is used for electricity or heat or both, and many other factors. Countries also use different emissions factors in reports to the UNFCCC. In its 2012 report, for example, the UK used the figure of 381.4 kg of carbon (1,400 kg carbon dioxide) emitted per tonne of wood biomass (based on IPCC guidance from 1997),232 whereas in its 2014 report, it used figures of 1,055 kg carbon dioxide per tonne of wood for power stations, 1,416 kg for domestic combustion and 1,767 kg for other industrial combustion.233 Other countries report emissions per unit of energy generated rather than per weight of wood.
Table 14: Biomass energy emissions, nine EU member states, 2015
Country |
CO2 emissions |
CO2 emissions from imported biomass – Kyoto Protocol parties |
CO2 emissions from imported biomass – Kyoto Protocol/Annex B non-parties |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Solid biomass (million tonnes (Mt)) |
Total energy (Mt) (biomass not included) |
Biomass compared to energy sector (%) |
(Mt) |
% of total solid biomass emissions |
Main source countries |
(Mt) |
% of total solid biomass emissions |
Main source countries |
|
Denmark |
11.54 |
35.02 |
33% |
3.38 |
29% |
Estonia, Latvia |
0.66 |
6% |
Russia |
Finland |
37.17 |
40.00 |
93% |
0.46 |
1% |
Estonia, Latvia |
1.90 |
5% |
Russia |
France |
42.73 |
315.70 |
14% |
0.87 |
2% |
Belgium, Germany |
0.02 |
0% |
|
Germany* |
101.91 |
744.33 |
14% |
1.91 |
2% |
Netherlands, Poland |
0.36 |
0% |
|
Italy |
32.09 |
341.67 |
9% |
3.34 |
10% |
Austria |
0.86 |
3% |
Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Poland |
31.15 |
290.84 |
11% |
0.17 |
1% |
Lithuania |
1.32 |
4% |
Belarus |
Romania |
16.35 |
68.09 |
24% |
0.01 |
0% |
0.35 |
2% |
Ukraine |
|
Sweden |
14.05 |
37.83 |
37% |
1.82 |
13% |
Latvia, Norway |
0.27 |
2% |
Russia |
UK |
25.52 |
398.33 |
6% |
3.37 |
13% |
Latvia, Portugal |
8.33 |
33% |
Canada, US |
Total |
312.51 |
2,271.81 |
14% |
15.34 |
5% |
14.08 |
5% |
*Germany does not report emissions from solid, liquid and gaseous biomass separately; this figure, of total biomass, will therefore be an over-estimate of the total from solid biomass.
Source: 2017 national inventory reports to the UNFCCC, available at http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/items/9492.php (accessed 28 Feb. 2018). For each country, solid biomass emissions are taken from the total biomass emissions reported (as a memo item) in Table 1s2 of its inventory report, with the proportion of solid biomass calculated from the figures given in Table 1(A)b; total energy emissions are taken from Table 1s1.
The table also indicates the main source countries for imports. Clearly, some countries import significant quantities of woody biomass from countries that do not account for their emissions within the framework of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol – particularly the UK, but also Denmark, Finland and Italy. In 2015, these four countries together imported solid biomass, which, if burnt, would have emitted over 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, on the assumptions outlined above. Emissions from imports from countries outside the second commitment period to the nine countries analysed here amounted to an estimated 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. These emissions will not be accounted for against any country’s greenhouse gas emission targets.
In addition to this, as noted above, even for imports from parties which have adopted targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, and also for biomass sourced domestically, a proportion of the emissions may be unaccounted for. This depends on what level of biomass harvesting the countries of origin included in their forest management reference levels – summarized below in Table 15 for the nine EU member states under consideration here and the six other parties to the Kyoto Protocol with targets under the second commitment period that are their main sources of imports (five EU member states – Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal – plus Norway). (Wood biomass imports from Belgium and Netherlands will have originated elsewhere, and been trans-shipped through these countries, since neither country has substantial domestic production; these countries are therefore not included.)
Of these 15 countries, Norway chose a forest management reference level based on its historical emissions, and therefore accounts for any change relative to 1990 levels, whether due to increased harvesting for biomass or any other reason. Harvesting for biomass at the 1990 level will not be accounted for, but any change since will.
All the other countries in the table elected to use business-as-usual reference levels for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, derived either from country-specific models or methodologies or from projections modelled by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). None of these projections include emissions stemming from policies adopted and implemented after 2009, including any measures taken to implement the Renewable Energy Directive, but any harvesting for biomass as a result of pre-2010 biomass energy policies will not be included in these countries’ emissions accounts.
Ten of the 14 countries in Table 15 using business-as-usual reference levels explicitly included policies encouraging the use of biomass energy within their emissions projections. In other words, these countries anticipated that some quantity of their emissions in the commitment period will result from biomass energy use – but, since this quantity is included in their reference levels, these emissions will not count against the countries’ national emissions targets.
Although the other four countries did not model the impacts of such policies within their reference levels, this does not preclude the possibility that any increases in forest harvests and/or biomass use included in these countries’ projections could be used for biomass energy. Any increases in emissions built into the reference level (and therefore undocumented) are not directly attributable to increased demand for biomass energy – but they could be.
A proportion of the emissions from the solid biomass burnt for energy in almost all of the nine countries analysed here will go unaccounted for, either because they or their main sources of imports use forest management reference levels that build in a level of biomass-related emissions or because they import from countries outside the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
To summarize, a proportion of the emissions from the solid biomass burnt for energy in almost all of the nine countries analysed here will go unaccounted for, either because they or their main sources of imports use forest management reference levels that build in a level of biomass-related emissions or because they import from countries outside the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Unfortunately, it is not possible precisely to calculate the quantity of unaccounted for emissions; the information provided in countries’ forest management reference level submissions is not usually sufficient to answer this question. Ideally, these submissions would have explicitly specified: (1) the anticipated impact of biomass energy policies on the quantity of woody biomass used; (2) the origins of that biomass (i.e. additional domestic forest harvests, increased use of domestic forestry residues or imported biomass); and (3) the resulting emissions. Of the countries whose reference levels explicitly included biomass energy policies, only three – Austria, Finland, and Sweden – explicitly quantified the impact of biomass energy policies on domestic forest biomass and/or the anticipated use of energy derived from forest biomass. Several other countries indicated that they had built anticipated increases in biomass energy use into their reference levels, but did not provide sufficient data to quantify the resulting impact on forest-based emissions.
Table 15: Forest management reference levels for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol for the countries included in Table 14
Type of reference level |
Does reference level include policies driving biomass energy use? |
Additional information |
|
---|---|---|---|
Austria |
Country-specific projection |
Yes; includes increase in demand for woody biomass for energy of 20 per cent from 2008–2020; gross domestic consumption of woody biomass for energy from 18 million m3 (145 PJ in 2009 to 21–22 million m3 (170–175 PJ) in 2020. Assumes around 20 per cent supply from imports. |
|
Denmark |
Country-specific projection |
No |
Increased use of woody biomass expected to be based primarily on imported wood pellets, not on domestic sources. |
Estonia |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Finland |
Country-specific projection |
Yes; projection includes increased use of wood chips from 5.3 TWh in 2007 to 21 TWh in 2020, increased use of wood/wood pellets from 13.7 TWh to 16 TWh. Projection also includes black liquor, industrial wood residues, and wood chips for biofuels. Assumes increased harvesting of logging residues and stumps; reduced dependence on imports. |
10–21 MtCO2 from burning domestically harvested wood for energy will not be counted towards the country’s emissions target.i |
France |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Germany |
Country-specific projection |
No |
|
Italy |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Latvia |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Lithuania |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Norway |
1990 (historical base year) |
N/A |
|
Poland |
Country-specific projection |
No |
|
Portugal |
Country-specific projection |
Yes; projected increase in harvests of 6 per cent attributable to expansion of pulp and bioenergy sectors. |
|
Romania |
JRC projection |
Yes; projection includes demand for biomass and waste for electricity and thermal energy; cannot determine type or origin of fuel. |
|
Sweden |
Country-specific projection |
Yes; projection includes increased use of forest residues and stumps for biomass energy from 8.6 TWh in 2010 to 13.3 TWh in 2020. Area of stump harvest increases from 4,800 hectares in 2010 to 23,400 hectares in 2020. |
|
UK |
Country-specific projection |
No |
Reference level assumes that up to 17 per cent of the biomass from planned harvests will be used for biomass energy; emissions from this quantity will therefore not be accounted for. |
Sources: National forest management reference levels submitted to the UNFCCC, http://unfccc.int/bodies/awg-kp/items/5896.php.
i Net calorific value for solid wood fuels = 7.8–16 GJ/t; emission factor = 109.6 gCO2/MJ for solid wood fuels. Statistics Finland (2014), ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Finland 1990–2012’, Table 3.2-3, http://www.stat.fi/tup/khkinv/fin_nir_2012_2014_04_15.pdf (accessed 20 Jan. 2018).
Recommendations for policy
It is clear that emissions from the use of forest biomass have not been accurately reflected in countries’ greenhouse gas accounts. The problem of ‘missing’, or unaccounted-for, emissions arises when a country using biomass for energy does the following:
- The country imports biomass from a country outside the accounting framework – such as the US, Canada or Russia, all of which are significant exporters of woody biomass that do not account for greenhouse gas emissions under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol;
- The country accounts for its biomass emissions using a historical forest management reference level that includes higher levels of biomass emissions than at present; or
- The country accounts for its biomass emissions using a business-as-usual forest management reference level that (explicitly or implicitly) includes anticipated emissions from biomass energy: these emissions will not count against its national target.
In each of these scenarios, the accounting framework allows countries to avoid accounting for biomass energy emissions in both the energy and land-use sectors. However, such an absence of emissions from biomass energy is merely an artefact of the greenhouse gas accounting framework. It is a fall in emissions on paper only and does not change those emissions’ impacts on the atmosphere. This risks creating perverse policy outcomes: where a tonne of emissions from burning biomass for energy does not count against a country’s emissions target but a tonne of emissions from fossil fuel energy sources does, this creates an incentive to use biomass energy rather than fossil fuels in order to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions – even where this reduction is not ‘real’, in the sense that it is not accounted for in any country’s land-use sector accounts.
The quantity of emissions missing from the international greenhouse gas accounting framework is impossible to calculate directly, but is likely to be significant. The data gaps and ambiguities highlighted above emphasize the need for more detailed reporting on the types, sources and countries of origin of biomass used for energy. Although many countries already collect these data, they are not currently available in a form that allows for a complete understanding of the impact of biomass energy use on global or national emissions.
One solution would be to account for carbon dioxide emissions from biomass burnt for energy within the energy sector, not the land-use sector. While additional rules would be required to ensure emissions were not double-counted in the energy and land-use sectors, this could be a viable solution given sufficient data and guidance to promote transparency. In effect, it would shift the incentives to manage biomass energy emissions from the countries in which the biomass is grown to the countries in which it is burnt.
If this major revision of greenhouse gas accounting rules does not prove acceptable, four steps could nevertheless be taken within the existing framework (accounting for biomass emissions in the land-use sector) to reduce the potential for missing emissions.
First, all countries should include the land-use sector, including forest management, in their national accounting. If carbon emissions from bioenergy continue to be reflected only in the land-use sector, then the practice of allowing biomass-producing countries to exclude their land-use sectors or, more narrowly, their forest management activities from accounting (as in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol) has the potential to create major accounting gaps with potentially perverse outcomes. The implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement – for which many details remain to be negotiated – affords an opportunity to revise the accounting system to incentivize all countries to report and account fully for emissions from their land-use sectors, including their forests.
Second, forest management reference levels should contain detailed information on projected emissions from using biomass for energy, the origins of that biomass (additional domestic forest harvests or increased use of domestic forestry residues) and the resulting emissions.
Third, countries that import biomass for energy should be required to report on whether and how the country of origin accounts for biomass-based emissions. Importing biomass from a country that does not account for such emissions, or from one that has built biomass energy demand into its accounting baseline, will result in ‘missing’ emissions and is likely to promote the importing country’s potentially perverse reliance on biomass energy. Emissions associated with this imported biomass should therefore be fully accounted for by the importing country, not the country of export.
Fourth, countries using domestic biomass for energy should reconcile their energy and land-use sector accounting approaches in order to put emissions from each sector on a par with each other. If possible, accounting for greenhouse gas emissions in the energy and land-use sectors should use the same benchmarks – either a historical reference year/period or a business-as-usual scenario – to avoid emissions leakage between the sectors, and this should be uniform across all countries. If this is not feasible, additional methodologies and rules should be devised to bring biomass energy emissions back into the accounting framework and treated in the same way as other energy-related emissions.
Although these options represent departures from current greenhouse gas reporting and accounting conventions, the scale of emissions at stake and the perverse incentives created by the current system demonstrate the need for reform of the current system to reflect more accurately the atmospheric impacts of relying on biomass for energy.