Position paper highlights fatal errors in the EU’s climate strategy

A critical new position paper—co-signed by 44 NGOs—dropped on 22 September 2026 ahead of the EU Renewable Energy Directive revision. It exposes a fatal flaw in EU climate strategy that nobody’s naming loudly enough.

Policy incentives introduced to slash emissions have done the opposite. Since 2001, biomass has become the EU’s largest “renewable” energy source—driving up emissions, stunting clean tech adoption and actively harming the European economy. That’s some impressive reverse engineering, really.

What the data actually shows:

• The Carbon Accounting Fraud: Wood burning is not carbon neutral. Biomass combustion emits more CO₂ per unit of energy than coal at the point of combustion. Emissions from biomass have doubled since 2001. Trees burn in seconds but take decades to regrow—this CO₂ accumulates faster than any forest can reabsorb. The math is simple. The accounting? Not so much.

• The Collapsing Carbon Sink: The EU now burns 47% of its entire annual wood harvest. Over-logging has turned many European forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources. The EU’s forest carbon sink has plummeted 43% since 2001—putting the bloc at risk of missing its own LULUCF climate targets. Talk about a sink-or-swim moment for the EU’s credibility.

• Biodiversity Under Fire: Legislation rewards burning any wood, financially incentivising clear-cutting of entire ecosystems—including trees with no commercial market. This destroys wildlife habitats, collapses biodiversity and degrades forests’ natural capacity to regulate water cycles, cool local climates and purify air. The policy only makes sense if you’re running a clear-cutting business plan.

• Health Toxicity Ignored: Wood smoke is scientifically proven to be more toxic than secondhand tobacco smoke and more mutagenic than exhaust fumes, triggering respiratory failure, heart disease and strokes. Major European cities are banning wood burning to protect people—while EU subsidies pay companies billions to pump it into our air. Inhale this, it’s renewable!

• Environmental Justice Abroad: The EU’s demand for wood pellets relies heavily on imports from places like the US Southeast and, increasingly, Asia. Marginalised communities there face chronic asthma from living next to 24/7 pellet manufacturing mills. So we’re exporting our green problems abroad. How very circular.

• Innovation Suffocated: By making bioenergy artificially cheap for energy companies, the EU delays expansion of genuinely clean alternatives: solar, wind, geothermal, heat pumps.

Accounting tricks won’t stop global warming. The root cause is fixable—we just need to stop branching out excuses. It’s time to move funding away from burning carbon-rich fuels, redirect toward insulation/storage/grid upgrades and continuous-cover forestry, and align policy with actual atmospheric science.

Because at this point, the only thing truly sustainable about EU biomass policy is the scandal.

October 2026