Right now we have a major opportunity to protect forests and climate from the biomass industry. In 2015, Tony Abbott added native forest wood to the list of renewable energy sources, so that companies burning wood to generate energy could claim renewable energy certificates. But Federal Labor is now listening to the community through a consultation process and we have the chance to take it off the list.
It is critical that this is done. We need forests protected for biodiversity and climate, not burned in furnaces. Please make sure your voice is heard during this consultation period.
We have until the 21st of October.
Here’s what to do
Email Renewableenergy@industry.gov.au
To make sure your email is counted as a submission, please include the personal information below: you can copy and paste into your email and then fill in your details. Feel free to change the publication statement to private or anonymous if you prefer.
Then include some or all of the points that follow, or write your own.
Submission to:
Dept of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Native forest wood waste in the Renewable Energy Target: consultation paper.
Submitted by email to renewableenergy@industry.gov.au.
Please reply to confirm my submission has been received.
Full name:
Email address:
State or territory:
Postcode:
I agree to the Department’s privacy collection statement.
I am happy for my submission to be published under my name.
To whom it may concern:
Wood from native forests must be removed from the list of renewable energy sources. A lengthy transition process would be damaging to forests and climate – native forest wood should be removed from the list immediately.
- Forests store and draw down huge volumes of carbon and are vital allies in our efforts to avert catastrophic climate change. Logging native forests and releasing their carbon into the atmosphere is a major cause of climate change.
- A native forest biomass industry, supported by renewable energy certificates, would create perverse incentives to log vast areas of forests under the guise of climate action.
- There is nothing climate friendly about burning native forest wood. In fact, biomass from native forests emits more greenhouse gas than coal per unit of energy generated.
- In 2015, Prime Minister Albanese said in Parliament, ‘Native wood waste is neither clean nor renewable. [The Abbott government]… makes it sound like it would just be the little offcuts which would be burnt, but the fact is that nothing is further from the truth.’
- We need the Prime Minister to act on this now and reinstate the Gillard-era ban on burning native forests and claiming renewable energy certificates.
- Native forest biomass threatens to become the new woodchipping in Australia – masquerading as using the waste and becoming the major driver of logging.
- Australia is in the midst of a biodiversity and extinction crisis. We need real action, not just words for protecting habitat and wildlife. Protecting native forests protects habitat, wildlife and biodiversity. A biomass industry threatens all this and cannot be allowed to develop.
If you’d like more information so you can write a detailed submission, the Burning biomass for energy discussion paper by Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon is a great place to start.
Thanks very much for everything you do for the forests. Please make sure your submission is in by the 21st of October, and pass this on to your networks and ask them to do the same.
