'A Beacon of Hope': UN Chief Lauds Deal to Export 20+ Million Tons of Ukrainian Grain

The agreement, said António Guterres, will "bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy" and "help stabilize global food prices which were already at record levels even before the war."

United Nations (Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attend a signature ceremony in Istanbul on July 22, 2022. (Photo: Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

July 22, 2022


United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday celebrated an agreement by Russia and Ukraine to free up over 20 million tons of grain exports at blockaded Black Sea ports amid soaring food prices and fears of famine.

"Let there be no doubt—this is an agreement for the world."

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, world leaders including Guterres have warned about the impact on the world's food chain. The Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed at a ceremony in Istanbul attended by the U.N. chief, Russian and Ukrainian ministers, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Guterres thanked Turkey's leader for facilitating the negotiations that produced the agreement, and told the Russian and Ukrainian representatives that "you have overcome obstacles and put aside differences to pave the way for an initiative that will serve the common interests of all."

"Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope, a beacon of possibility, a beacon of relief—in a world that needs it more than ever," he said. "And let there be no doubt—this is an agreement for the world."

"It will bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy and the most vulnerable people on the edge of famine," Guterres continued. "And it will help stabilize global food prices which were already at record levels even before the war—a true nightmare for developing countries.

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Surging Prices Amid Ukraine War Have Pushed 71 Million People Worldwide Into Poverty

"The initiative we just signed opens a path for significant volumes of commercial food exports from three key Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea," he explained. The warring parties also reached an agreement to get Russian food and fertilier to global markets.

The New York Times reported on how the export operation will work:

Ukrainian captains will steer vessels packed with grain out of the ports of Odesa, Yuzhne and Chornomorsk.

Using passages that are not mined, they will pilot the ships to Turkish ports to be unloaded, and the grain will then be shipped to buyers around the world.

The returning vessels will be inspected by a team of Turkish, U.N., Ukrainian and Russian officials to ensure that they are empty, and not carrying weapons to Ukraine, a key Russian demand.

A joint command center with officials from all four parties will be set up immediately in Istanbul to monitor every movement of the flotillas.

The newspaper also noted that "no broad cease-fire has been negotiated, so the ships will be traveling through a war zone," and attacks at the ports or inspection issues could imperil the 120-day deal, which officials hope will be renewed on a rolling basis.

Guterres, in his speech Friday, also acknowledged that in Ukraine, "conflict continues. People are dying every day. Fighting is raging every day."

"The beacon of hope on the Black Sea is shining bright today, thanks to the collective efforts of so many," he added. "In these trying and turbulent times for the region and our globe, let that beacon guide the way towards easing human suffering and securing peace."

Leaders at humanitarian groups cautiously welcomed the agreement.

"The lifting of these blockades will go some way in easing the extreme hunger that over 18 million people in East Africa are facing, with three million already facing catastrophic hunger conditions," said Shashwat Saraf, the International Rescue Committee's East Africa emergency director.

"Let's be clear—this will not end or significantly alter the trajectory of the worsening global food crisis."

"The next and significant step must be fully funding the humanitarian response in the region, to stave off the worst impacts of the drought and prevent a catastrophic, unprecedented famine from fully engulfing the region by the end of the summer," Saraf added.

Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, CEO of Mercy Corps, said that if the deal is respected, it "will help ease grain shortages, but let's be clear—this will not end or significantly alter the trajectory of the worsening global food crisis."

"Unblocking Ukraine's ports will not reverse the damage war has wreaked on crops, agricultural land, and agricultural transit routes in the country; it will not significantly change the price or availability of fuel, fertilizer, and other staple goods that are now beyond the reach of many, particularly in lower-income countries; and it will certainly not help the majority of the 50 million people around the world inching closer to famine stave off starvation," she said.

Highlighting conditions from Afghanistan, Colombia, and Guatemala to Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, McKenna argued that "we must recognize that our global food systems were already failing and record numbers of people were edging toward poverty and hunger due to the economic pummeling of the Covid-19 crisis and the impacts of climate change."

Along with providing emergency assistance, she said, "urgent action must be taken to strengthen agricultural food systems: Scale climate-resilient agricultural production and boost support for local agriculture by providing smallholder farmers the information, financial, and regulatory support they need to help their communities and countries reduce reliance on imports."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Russia and Ukraine sign grain export deal: What you should know


Russia and Ukraine have signed a landmark deal with the United Nations and Turkey on resuming grain shipments in an attempt to ease a global food crisis in which millions face hunger.

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukrainian infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov each signed separate but identical agreements with UN and Turkish officials on reopening blocked Black Sea delivery routes.

Kyiv officials said they did not want to put their name on the same document as the Russians because of the five-month war that has killed thousands and displaced millions of Ukrainians.

Here is what you need to know:

What is the objective of the deal?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 led to a de-facto blockade of the Black Sea, resulting in Ukraine’s exports dropping to one-sixth of their pre-war level. Both Kyiv and Moscow are among the largest exporters of grain in the world, and the blockade has caused grain prices to rise dramatically.

The deal aims to help avert famine by injecting more wheat, sunflower oil, fertiliser and other products into world markets, including for humanitarian needs. It targets the pre-war level of five million metric tonnes of grain exported each month.

The UN World Food Programme says some 47 million people are now in a stage of “acute hunger” due to fallout from the war and experts have long warned of a looming global food crisis if Ukrainian grain exports remained blocked.

Ukraine also needs to empty its silos ahead of a coming harvest, while more exported fertiliser will avoid lower global yields for coming harvests.

Russia and the UN also signed a memorandum of understanding committing the latter to facilitate unimpeded access to global markets for Russian fertiliser and other products.


© Provided by Al Jazeera

When will grain exports resume?

According to Russia’s Shoigu, grain exports could restart in the “next few days”.

“Today we have all the prerequisites and all the solutions for this process to begin in the next few days,” Shoigu said after signing the deal.

Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters, said it could be a “couple of weeks” before the first shipment of grain leaves Ukraine.

“There will be a test of implementation in the coming weeks,” Bays said, noting the backlog of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain in the country. “It is going to take some time to get all of that grain out – experts estimate probably about four months,” he added.

The deal is valid for four months or 120 days and will be automatically renewed unless the war ends.

Which ports are included?

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the accord would open the way to commercial food exports from three key Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.

A UN official told Reuters the deal included a “de facto ceasefire” for the ships and facilities covered.


A worker loads a truck with grain at a terminal during barley harvesting in Odesa 

[File: Igor Tkachenko/Reuters]

How will the deal be implemented?

Guterres said there will be a Joint Control Center (JCC) in Istanbul, which will schedule and monitor shipments.

According to one UN official, the JCC will be staffed by officials from the UN and probably military officials from the three countries involved, Reuters reported.

Though Ukraine has mined the waters near the ports as part of its war defences, there is no further need for de-mining. Rather, Ukrainian pilots will guide the ships along safe channels in its territorial waters, with a minesweeper vessel on hand as needed but no military escorts.

Monitored by the JCC, the ships then transit the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait and off to world markets.

All sides have agreed there will be no attacks on these entities. If a prohibited activity is observed, it will be the task of the JCC to “resolve” it, the official said without elaborating.

In response to Russian concerns about ships delivering weapons to Ukraine, all returning ships will be inspected at a Turkish port by a team with representatives from all parties and overseen by the JCC. The teams will board vessels and assess their cargo before they can return to Ukraine.

‘A beacon of hope’: How the world reacted

Russia

Defence minister Shoigu has said Moscow will not take advantage of the fact that the ports will be demined and opened. “We have made this commitment,” he said.

Ukraine

Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv trusts the UN, not Russia, to uphold the deal.

“Ukraine doesn’t trust Russia. I don’t think anyone has reasons to trust Russia. We invest our trust in the United Nations as the driving force of this agreement,” Kuleba said at an online press briefing.

United Nations

Guterres said there was now a “beacon on the Black Sea” after the “unprecedented” agreement was finalised.

“A beacon of hope … possibility … and relief in a world that needs it more than ever,” he added.

Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the pact will “renew hopes for peace”.

“With the ship traffic that will start in the coming days, we will open a new breathing tube from the Black Sea to many countries of the world,” he added after the deal signing.

European Union

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says the deal was a “critical step” in helping reduce global food insecurity.

“EU remains committed to help Ukraine bring as much of its grain into global markets as possible,” he wrote on Twitter.

United States

The US called on Russia to allow Ukrainian grain to be exported quickly and voiced hope that the Turkish-brokered deal was well-structured enough to monitor compliance.

“We fully expect the implementation of today’s arrangement to commence swiftly to prevent the world’s most vulnerable from sliding into deeper insecurity and malnutrition,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Ukraine-Russia grain deal to include control centre, inspections


Issued on: 22/07/2022 

01:24 Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting along with UN and Turkish negotiators in Istanbul, Wednesday, July 13, 2022. © Turkish Defence Ministry via AP

Text by: FRANCE 24


Ukraine and Russia are set to sign a deal in Istanbul on Friday to reopen Ukraine's Black Sea ports and release Ukrainian grain exports, according to Turkey. Here are some details of the measures likely to be adopted in the agreement.

Following nearly two months of tough negotiations, Ukrainian and Russian officials are expected to sign the Black Sea ports deal at a ceremony in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace in the presence of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Some of the measures negotiated by the two sides:

Control centre based in Istanbul

A coordination and monitoring centre will be established in Istanbul, to be staffed by UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian officials, which would run and coordinate the grain exports, officials have said.

Ships would be inspected to ensure that they are carrying grains and fertiliser rather than weapons. It also makes provision for the safe passage of the ships.

The control centre will be responsible for establishing ship rotation schedules in the Black Sea. Around three to four weeks are still needed to finalise details to make it operational, according to the experts involved in the negotiations.

Inspections on departures and arrivals in Turkey

The inspection of ships carrying grain was a Russian condition to ensure vessels would not simultaneously deliver weapons to Ukraine.

These inspections will not take place at sea as was once envisaged due to practical reasons, but will be carried out in Turkey, probably in Istanbul, which has two major commercial ports at the entrance to the Bosphorus (Haydarpasa) and on the Sea of Marmara (Ambarli).

Conducted by representatives of the four parties, the inspections will done upon the departure and arrival of ships.

Securing shipping lanes

Russians and Ukrainians are committed to respecting shipping lanes free of military activity in the Black Sea.

Under the agreement, if demining is required, it will have to be carried out by a "third country". Details of the third party have not yet been specified.

From Ukraine, the ships will be escorted by Ukrainian vessels (probably military) leading the way out of Ukrainian territorial waters.

Four-month duration, automatic renewal

The agreement would be signed for four months and automatically renewed. If 20 to 25 tonnes of grain are currently outstanding in silos in Ukrainian ports, and at a rate of eight tonnes evacuated per month, this four-month period should be enough to clear the stocks.

A condition related to Russian grain and fertilisers

A memorandum of understanding must accompany this agreement, signed by the UN and Russia, guaranteeing that Western sanctions against Moscow will not affect Russian grain and fertilisers, directly or indirectly.

This was a Russian prerequisite for signing the agreement.

TURKISH IMPERIALISM
Syrian Kurds, Damascus gov’t discuss border protection amid Turkey offensive threat

Last Updated On: Jul 02 2022 

The Kurdish groups who control part of northern and eastern Syria, a region they refer to as Rojava, have held meetings with the government in Damascus to discuss how to protect the Syrian-Turkish borders, London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday, citing a Kurdish official.

Russia sponsored the talks as Turkey appears to prepare for another incursion into Kurdish-held areas to the east of the River Euphrates.

Syrian forces are already present at the border areas in a limited capacity, having moved in after Turkey took control of significant territory away from Syrian Kurds. Damascus has recently reinforced its positions in northern Raqqa and eastern Aleppo, Asharq al-Awsat said.

Badran Jia Kurd, a vice president in the autonomous administration in Kurdish-held Syrian territory, told reporters that the agreement with regime forces had been in place since 2019.

Damascus must have a clear stance on the Turkish threat and confront any incursion, as it jeopardises stability, unity and the future of the whole country, he said.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the military element controlling the region, hopes to avoid a Turkish offensive by giving the task of protecting the border to the government.

Damascus is also interested in the Kurdish region, which contains deposits of oil and is home to many wheat fields.

Turkey considers the SDF, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to be terrorist groups, and is working to get its Western allies on board with the idea. Earlier in the week, Ankara secured a memorandum with Stockholm and Helsinki that Sweden and Finland would stop aiding YPG or other similar groups.

The agreement reached in the NATO accession negotiations for the two Nordic countries has been considered by some to be a signal that the operation will begin soon.

IOWA

Proposed 350-mile carbon capture pipeline would go through Johnson County. Here's what you need to know.

IT'S BUILDING A PIPELINE CAUSES DAMAGE, DOESN'T MATTER WHAT IT TRANSPORTS

George Shillcock, Iowa City Press-Citizen
Thu, July 7, 2022 

A sliver of northeastern Johnson County is included in the latest proposal for a carbon capture pipeline in Iowa after two much larger projects completely avoided the area.

A map of a proposed pipeline filed with the Iowa Utilities Board shows the main artery of the 350-mile project would extend from an Archer Daniels Midland Co. location in Cedar Rapids, cutting southeast through Johnson, Linn, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties. A second lateral line would run north from Davenport to another ADM location in Clinton.

Wolf Carbon Solutions, based in Denver, is partnering with ADM on the proposed pipeline. The company announced in January that it intended to build a pipeline in Iowa. A news release from the companies said the pipeline will transport carbon dioxide from ADM’s ethanol and cogeneration facilities in Clinton and Cedar Rapids to be stored permanently underground at ADM’s already-operational sequestration site in Decatur, Illinois.

While the main line wouldn't go directly through Johnson County, the proposed route's 2-mile corridor does include the northeastern part of the county. Other pipeline proposals in Iowa have avoided running through Johnson County, where opposition is expected.

"This is an exciting opportunity for ADM to connect some of our largest processing facilities with our carbon capture capabilities, advancing our work to significantly reduce our CO2 emissions while delivering sustainable solutions for our customers," ADM president of carbohydrate solutions Chris Cuddy said in the release. "These efforts are core to our purpose, our culture and our growth, and we look forward to working with Wolf Carbon Solutions to finalize this agreement and further decarbonize our operations and our industry.”

Nick Noppinger at Wolf Carbon Solutions told the Press-Citizen in an email statement that the company's goal is to reach voluntary agreements through respectful and open discussions with all landowners along this proposed route. He said the proposed 2-mile corridor, with one mile on each side of a proposed center line, would enable them to cooperatively work with landowners to determine the best possible route.

“Wolf Carbon Solutions is committed to building and maintaining meaningful relationships with landowners," Noppinger said.

The proposed 350-mile carbon capture pipeline from Wolf Carbon Solutions US, LLC

This pipeline is one of several proposed in the Midwest that would run through Iowa, drawing criticism from environmental groups and landowners amid fears that eminent domain will be used to take property for the construction of pipelines.

Other critics argue the pipelines don't do enough to lower carbon emissions and say Iowa should focus on transitioning the state's farming economy away from producing renewable fuel, and the corn and soybean crops needed to make it.

Three companies — Summit Carbon Solutions, Navigator CO2 Ventures and ADM-Wolf — want to build pipelines that run through Iowa that will be used to move carbon dioxide captured from ethanol, fertilizer and other agricultural industrial plants.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors and other county governments and elected officials and also signaled strong opposition to these projects.

More: What we know about three carbon capture pipelines proposed in Iowa
Company claims to push for carbon-neutrality, but critics questions eminent domain tactics and environmental impact

The 350-mile pipeline would include both a main line running west to east from Cedar Rapids into Illinois, and a lateral line running south to north from just north of Davenport to Clinton.

The company would use pressure to liquefy the carbon dioxide, and the pipelines would transport it and then inject it deep underground where it will be permanently sequestered. Summit Carbon plans to sequester carbon in North Dakota; Navigator CO2 and Wolf-ADM plan to do so in Illinois.

ADM and Wolf expect to transport 12 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

The news release from Wolf-ADM states that ADM’s carbon capture and sequestration capabilities in Decatur have allowed it to safely and permanently store more than 3.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide 1½ miles underground and have paved the way for increased decarbonization of the company’s operations. The company announced plans to construct a zero-emissions power plant adjacent to the company’s Decatur corn complex, and wants to achieve the wheat milling industry’s first carbon-neutral footprint.

This map, based on information in March 2022, shows the proposed route of the 2,000-mile Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline that will carry pressurized carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to a sequestration site a mile underground in central North Dakota. About 470 miles of the pipeline would be located in South Dakota.

The release said the pipeline would have significant spare capacity to serve other third-party customers looking to decarbonize across the Midwest and Ohio River Valley.

To build the pipeline, Wolf-ADM will either have to purchase land from many private property owners along the 350-mile route or acquire permission from the Iowa Utilities Board and county governments to use eminent domain to acquire the land, regardless or the support of private landowners.

While landowners can refuse to voluntarily give up their land for this type of project, Summit, Navigator and ADM-Wolf can ask the three-person Iowa Utilities Board to grant eminent domain powers if they're determined to serve a public purpose. That would force unwilling landowners to grant easements at fair market values.

Eminent domain is a power a government entity or its agent can use to take private property for public use while compensating landowners. In this case, if the board grants eminent domain powers, it would force unwilling landowners to sell ADM-Wolf the rights to build across their property.

The Des Moines Register reported that several experts are skeptical of the environmental impact of these pipelines, despite the White House saying that carbon sequestration projects likely will be needed to meet President Joe Biden's climate goal of net-zero emissions economywide by 2050.

The proposals have drawn bipartisan ire from politicians and became an issue prior to the primary elections, including for four of the six Republicans who ran for a Iowa House of Representatives seat, and others throughout the state. As recently as March, a large group of people opposing a pipeline project gathered in the Iowa Capitol.

Wolf-ADM is asking for several informational meetings to take place in September. The company could bypass the need to use eminent domain by reaching out to landowners along the proposed route and attempting to negotiate easements.

More: Iowa official asks Summit Carbon Solutions for more information about possible pipeline leaks, dangers

Johnson County Supervisors express opposition to carbon capture pipelines

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has already taken a strong stance against carbon capture pipelines, months before any route was officially proposed to run through the county.

The board sent two letters opposing the other two pipeline projects using eminent domain, even though they would not run through Johnson County.

On Wednesday, Supervisor Jon Green told the board about the Wolf-ADM project and said he would like to see the Supervisors send an additional letter stating the county's opposition. The rest of the board signaled its support for an additional letter.

Green, in April, speculated that such a pipeline would eventually make its way to Johnson County and suggested the board should put its "finger on the scale." The other Supervisors agreed and the letter was sent.

When The Cedar Rapids Gazette first reported about this proposed pipeline Tuesday, Green tweeted his opposition to it running through Johnson County.

Michael Daly, a resident of Cedar Township in Johnson County, said at the April meeting that a potential pipeline could cut into his land. It is unclear if this proposal would

"My interest now is more urgent to find some solution," he said. "About the only thing we can do is object."

Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass said in April that eminent domain should be used for "the greater good and not for private enterprise or private profit, which is what this would be."

The latest version of Navigator Co.'s proposed Heartland Greenway carbon capture pipeline.

The Linn County Supervisors also signed a letter in January opposing using eminent domain for pipelines.

Johnson County Board of Supervisors Executive Director Mike Hensch said in April that he wanted to remind the public that, even if eminent domain is exercised, objections from landowners will go to a county compensation commissions. Hensch is a member of the compensation commission and said he was not taking a position on the issue.

"Each county, in the compensation commissions, can refuse the amount of money that is being recommended. And the step beyond that is district court. We're years away," he said.

More: Advocacy group estimates carbon capture pipelines crossing Iowa will get $23 billion at public expense

Wolf-ADM requests public meetings in September

ADM-Wolf is proposing five public informational meetings in the counties that the pipeline would go through, and a sixth that would be virtual.

"Wolf is committed to transparent, two-way communication throughout this process and is enthusiastic about bringing the economic and environmental benefits of this carbon capture and storage project to Iowa," its letter read.

The letter said that once dates are confirmed, the company will make reservations for suitable locations in each county. Each location will have Wi-Fi capabilities and will be ADA-compliant.

More: Tech giants like renewable energy, but question cost of MidAmerican's $3.9 billion wind, solar plan

George Shillcock is the Press-Citizen's local government and development reporter covering Iowa City and Johnson County. He can be reached at (515) 350-6307, GShillcock@press-citizen.com and on Twitter @ShillcockGeorge

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Where a carbon capture pipeline could run through Johnson County

Does wood bioenergy help or harm the climate?

"To avoid the worst harms from climate change we must
not only keep the vast majority of remaining fossil carbon
in the ground, but must also keep the vast majority of the
carbon in forests on the land."

In the most financially successful version of biomass technology to date, huge swathes of forests in North America are clearcut and all the vegetation ground and compressed into dense little chips that look like the feed pellets available at the corner pet store. After it’s been processed into these generic pellets, the wood is relatively easy to use as a replacement for coal: the wood (or any other organic material) is made to behave as much as possible like very small, broken-up pieces of coal in a furnace. Logs and wood pellets 

image courtesy of VisionTIR

LONG READ

By John Sterman, William Moomaw, Juliette N. Rooney-Varga, Lori Siegel, 

May 10, 2022

In the 2015 Paris climate accord, 197 countries agreed to limit warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius,” and to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius. To have even a roughly 50 percent chance of achieving this goal, net global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by nearly half from 2010 levels this decade and reach zero by mid-century (UNFCCC 2021). Consequently, at least 140 countries, accounting for about 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have pledged to reach net zero emissions around the middle of this century (Climate Action Tracker 2021). But few have specified how they will do so. A growing number, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have declared wood bioenergy to be carbon neutral, allowing them to exclude the carbon dioxide generated from wood bioenergy combustion in their greenhouse gas accounting. Many subsidize wood bioenergy to help meet their renewable energy targets (Norton et al. 2019). The appeal is intuitive: burning fossil fuels adds carbon that has been sequestered underground for millions of years to the atmosphere, while forests might regrow, eventually removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But can burning trees—including not just the trunk, but also the bark, branches, needles or leaves, roots, stumps, mill waste, sawdust, and all the other vegetative materials known as “biomass” that make up a forest—help cut carbon emissions in time to prevent climate catastrophe?

The bioenergy industry and many governments argue that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral. The “Claims and Facts” tables throughout the text below list some of the common claims the industry makes, together with the science showing these claims to be incorrect. For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization claims that “While burning fossil fuels releases CO2 that has been locked up for millions of years, burning biomass simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that was absorbed as the plants grew” (Matthews and Robertson 2001). But the fact that the carbon in wood was previously removed from the atmosphere as the trees grew is irrelevant: A molecule of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere today has the same impact on radiative forcing—its contribution to global warming—whether it comes from fossil fuels millions of years old or biomass grown last year. When burned, the carbon in those trees immediately increases atmospheric carbon dioxide above what it would have been had they not been burned.



To illustrate, consider a forest that was harvested for lumber, pulpwood, or energy 50 years ago, and has been regrowing since then. (Few forests in the United States and Europe are mature, “old growth”—most are “working forests” and go through cycles of harvest, regrowth, and reharvest [see US Forest Service 2014]). What happens if that forest is now cut and burned for energy? When the wood is burned, the carbon it contains is emitted as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If the forest regrows, after another 50 years it will have removed about the same amount of carbon dioxide it emitted when it was cut and burned for energy. Until then, there’s more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than if it had not been burned, accelerating climate change.

But the situation is worse: If the forest had not been cut, it would have continued to grow, removing additional carbon from the atmosphere. Compared to allowing the forest to grow, cutting it for bioenergy would increase carbon dioxide emissions and worsen global warming for at least half a century—time we do not have to reach net-zero emissions and avoid the worst harms from climate change.

But what if the wood used to generate electricity reduces the use of fossil fuels? Wouldn’t total carbon dioxide emissions then fall? That depends on how much carbon dioxide is emitted from wood relative to the fuel being displaced. To determine whether wood bioenergy can slow climate change, we therefore need to know answers to a series of questions:

How much carbon dioxide does burning wood for energy add to the atmosphere?

Burning wood to generate electricity emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour generated than fossil fuels—even coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Although wood and coal contain about the same amount of carbon per unit of primary energy—the raw energy in the fuel—(EPA 2018), wood burns less efficiently, in part because it contains more water than coal. The higher the water content, the larger the fraction of the energy of combustion goes into vaporizing that water and up the flue instead of producing the heat needed to make the steam that powers the turbines and generators (Dzurenda and Banski 2017, FAO 2015).

Carbon dioxide emissions from the wood supply chain also exceed those from coal. Wood must be harvested, transported to a mill, dried, processed into chips or pellets, and transported to a power plant (Figure 1). These activities emit carbon dioxide from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and machinery, plus emissions from burning wood or fossil fuels to reduce the water content of chips and pellets from approximately 50 percent for raw wood to about 10 percent for dried pellets. About 27 percent of the harvested biomass is lost in the wood pellet supply chain, of which the largest share—18 percent—arises from burning some of the biomass to generate heat to dry pellets (Röder et al. 2015). In contrast, coal processing adds only about 11 percent to emissions (Sterman et al. 2018a).

The situation is worse if wood displaces other fossil fuels: Wood releases about 25 percent more carbon dioxide per joule of primary energy than fuel oil, and about 75 percent more carbon dioxide than fossil (so-called “natural”) gas (EPA 2018). Wood bioenergy therefore emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of power generated than all fossil fuels, including coal (PFPI 2011), incurring a “carbon debt”—an immediate increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, worsening climate change every year, unless and until that carbon debt is repaid later by forest regrowth. 

Figure 1. Life cycle emissions from wood bioenergy. Every stage of the supply chain adds CO2 to the atmosphere, from cutting the trees through transport, processing the wood into chips or pellets, transporting them to a power plant, and combustion. CO2 is removed only later, and only if, the harvested land regrows. Photo credits, left to right: Power Plant, courtesy of Paul Glazzard, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Transport: Handymax bulk carrier, courtesy of Nsandel/Wikimedia/Public Domain. Pellet mill, Truck Transport, and Forest images all courtesy of Dogwood Alliance, used with permission.

Will the forests harvested for bioenergy regrow? If so, how long will it take?

The wood bioenergy industry claims to practice sustainable forestry and be carbon neutral (e.g., Drax 2021, Enviva 2021). The most important claim is that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral because the harvested forests will regrow, removing the carbon they add to the atmosphere when burned (Table 1). However, regrowth is uncertain, and regrowth takes time.

Regrowth is uncertain: Land harvested for bioenergy might be converted to pasture, cropland, or development, preventing regrowth. The carbon dioxide emitted when the trees are burned is then never taken back up by forest regrowth on that land. Even if the harvested land is allowed to regrow, the trees may be harvested again, legally or illegally. The carbon dioxide released in each rotation returns to the atmosphere, where it worsens climate change.

Even if the recovering forest is somehow protected against all future harvest, the trees face risks from wildfire, insects, disease, extreme weather, and drought, all increasing as the climate warms (Brecka et al. 2018; Xu et al. 2019, Boulton, Lenton and Boers 2022). These factors slow or prevent carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere by forests and may even convert forests from carbon sinks to carbon sources (Gatti et al. 2021). These growing risks to regrowth would limit the future removal of the carbon dioxide emitted by burning wood, permanently worsening climate change.

Regrowth takes time: Even if land conversion, repeated harvests, fire, drought, disease, and other adverse events never arise, regrowth takes time. The time required for regrowth to remove the carbon dioxide emitted when wood is burned for energy is known as the “carbon debt payback time.”


Are the forests harvested for bioenergy growing and removing carbon dioxide now?

The US bioenergy industry uses the fact that many US forests are growing today to claim that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral. For example, Enviva, the largest US pellet producer, with multiple mills in the Southeast United States, falsely argues that “…continued forest carbon gain across the landscape… means that products from the Southeast U.S., including wood bioenergy, are not adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere. As a result, when wood pellets from this region are used to generate energy, we can set stack emissions to zero.” (Enviva, nd; see Table 1).
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It is true that forests in the Southeast US are acting as carbon sinks today as the result of intensive management and recovery from prior harvests. But these and other forest carbon sinks are already accounted for in the national greenhouse gas emissions inventories required under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets the rules for greenhouse gas accounting under international agreements (e.g., UNFCCC 2014). Therefore, what counts is what happens to emissions on the margin—that is, the incremental impact of harvesting forests for bioenergy compared to allowing those forests to continue to grow and serve as carbon sinks. Typical rotation periods for working forests are far shorter than the time required for them to reach maturity and maximum carbon storage (Moomaw, Masino, and Faison 2019, Sohngen and Brown 2011, US Forest Service 2014). The younger the forest and faster it is growing when harvested for bioenergy, the more future carbon sequestration is lost.

A dynamic lifecycle assessment of wood bioenergy

To determine the impact of wood bioenergy on carbon dioxide emissions we developed a model for dynamic lifecycle assessment of wood bioenergy (Sterman et al. 2018a; Sterman et al. 2018b). The model includes carbon dioxide emissions from bioenergy, carbon dioxide uptake by regrowth, and carbon dioxide emissions avoided if wood displaces fossil fuels. Supply chain emissions for both wood and fossil fuels are included. Model parameters were estimated from data on forest regrowth in a wide range of forests in the southern and eastern USA, regions increasingly supplying wood for pellets, much of which is exported to Europe and the United Kingdom.

Figure 2. Impact of harvesting wood for bioenergy in 2025 from a 50-year-old oak-hickory forest in the south central USA. Top: Change in carbon on the harvested land (tons C per hectare). Brown: carbon in soils and dead organic matter; Green: carbon in living biomass. Dotted line: the total carbon stock (living biomass and soils) if the forest were not harvested in 2025. The forest would have continued to grow and remove carbon from the atmosphere but for being cut for bioenergy. The difference between the dotted no-harvest line and the top of the green band is the carbon emitted into the atmosphere by the harvest. Bottom: Change in atmospheric CO2 resulting from the harvest and combustion of the wood. Solid line: wood displaces a zero-carbon energy source. Dotted line: wood displaces coal. Scale: the initial rise in atmospheric CO2 when wood displaces zero-carbon energy is normalized to 100%. The initial rise in atmospheric CO2 when wood displaces coal is about 50% less due to the emissions avoided by the reduction in coal use.

Figure 2 (above) shows the impact of wood harvested for bioenergy from an oak-hickory forest, “perhaps the most extensive deciduous forest type of eastern North America” (Dick 2016). The simulation parameters are estimated for oak-hickory forests in the south central United States, among the forests used to supply wood pellets for bioenergy, including exports to the United Kingdom (Buchholz & Gunn 2015; Sterman et al. 2018a 2018b report results for other forests in the southern and eastern US). Most forests in the United States have been cut multiple times. We assume the last prior harvest was 50 years ago. To assess the dynamic impact of wood bioenergy use, Figure 2 traces the impact of a single harvest in 2025, showing the stocks of carbon in the biomass and soil and the resulting change in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We consider two scenarios:The harvested wood is used to generate electric power that replaces an equivalent amount of energy generated from coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.
The harvested wood is used to generate electric power that replaces an equivalent amount of energy produced by zero-carbon sources (e.g., wind and solar).

The top panel of Figure 2 shows the stock of carbon on the land harvested for bioenergy (metric tons of carbon per hectare), including the carbon in the living biomass and in soils and dead organic matter. The harvest and combustion of wood for energy immediately reduces the stock of carbon in living biomass on the land and increases atmospheric carbon dioxide. The stock of carbon in dead biomass and soil also begins to drop: the wood harvest reduces the flux of carbon from living biomass to soils, while heterotrophic respiration by bacteria, fungi, and other organisms continues to release the carbon in dead biomass and soils into the atmosphere. After the harvest, the forest begins to recover. Soil carbon continues to drop for some time, however, until the flux of carbon transferred to the soils from living biomass exceeds the flux of carbon emitted to the atmosphere from the soil by heterotrophic respiration.

The simulation assumes the land is harvested 50 years after the last rotation. The forest at that time is still recovering. The dotted line in the top panel of Figure 2 shows that the total stock of carbon on that land would have continued to grow through 2200 (and beyond), but for the harvest for bioenergy. The difference between the no-harvest and harvest cases is the quantity of carbon lost to the atmosphere due to the bioenergy harvest. The bioenergy harvest not only adds the carbon extracted and burned to the atmosphere, but prevents the additional growth that would have occurred had the forest not been harvested.

The bottom panel of Figure 2 shows the change in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the two scenarios above. The figure shows the evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to the no-harvest case, scaled relative to the magnitude of the initial change in carbon dioxide when the wood displaces zero-carbon energy such as wind and solar (the absolute change in atmospheric carbon dioxide depends on the amount of wood harvested and burned). Cutting and burning trees for bioenergy immediately increases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide when wood displaces coal is approximately half as much as when the wood displaces zero-carbon energy. The impact of displacing other fossil fuels such as fuel oil or fossil (“natural”) gas lies between the coal and zero-carbon scenarios because these fuels emit less carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour than coal, but of course more than wind or solar.

Note that, in both cases atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase through approximately 2040, 15 years after the assumed harvest in 2025. Although the harvested land begins to regrow immediately, seedlings and saplings have much smaller leaf area for photosynthesis and accumulate carbon slower than older trees. Consequently, the carbon sequestered by regrowth is initially less than the carbon the forest would have stored had it not been harvested.


After approximately the year 2040, the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the harvest and combustion of the wood begins to fall as regrowth outpaces the growth in carbon in the no-harvest case. However, atmospheric carbon dioxide remains above the level it would have had but for the harvest well beyond the year 2100. Even when wood displaces coal, the excess carbon dioxide is not taken back up by forest regrowth until after the year 2140: The carbon debt payback time in this scenario is approximately 115 years. When the wood displaces zero-carbon energy, atmospheric carbon dioxide remains above its initial level well past the year 2200.

The simulation shows the impact of clearing a stand of forest and using the wood for bioenergy. The bioenergy industry claims that they practice what they call “sustainable” forestry—avoiding clearcutting, taking only residues from lumber and pulpwood harvests, or thinning forests by taking only small or diseased trees. Environmental groups, however, have documented the harvest of large trees and clear-cutting by the industry (Norton et al. 2019; Stashwick et al. 2019; Stashwick et al. 2017). To address this issue, we also simulated the impact of thinning, in which only 25 percent of the living biomass is removed from the harvested forest (Sterman et al. 2018a 2018b). Across all the forests examined, thinning reduces the carbon debt payback times somewhat. For example, in the scenario shown in Figure 2, thinning reduces the carbon debt payback year from 2140 to 2115—still too late.

The simulations favor wood bioenergy. We assume that the land remains forested, that the forest grows back without any subsequent harvest, and that it suffers no losses from wildfire, disease, insects, extreme weather or other threats to regrowth. We do not consider additional carbon loss from soils due to the disturbance caused by the harvest. We do not consider non-climate harms from wood harvest and bioenergy production, including habitat fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, and the health effects of exposure to particulates and other pollutants from wood processing and power plants.

To track the impact of wood bioenergy, the simulation shows the impact of harvesting and burning wood for energy in a single year. But the bioenergy industry is growing rapidly, stimulated by the false declaration that wood is carbon neutral and resulting subsidies in many nations. The International Energy Agency reports primary energy from biomass for electricity generation grew at an average rate of more than 6 percent per year between 1990 and 2018 (IEA 2020). The IEA’s “Net-Zero by 2050” scenario projects modern bioenergy—which includes wood—will grow by more than a factor of four by 2050 (IEA 2021b).

What happens to atmospheric carbon dioxide in the realistic case of growing wood bioenergy use? Each year the carbon dioxide emissions from cutting and burning wood would exceed the removal of carbon dioxide by regrowth, continually increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, just as filling your bathtub faster than it drains will continually raise the level of water in the tub (until it overflows and damages your home).

The situation is analogous to a government that runs a continually growing fiscal deficit. The outstanding debt rises every year even if the government fully repays every bond it issues at maturity. In the same way, the growing use of wood bioenergy adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, increasing the outstanding carbon debt, even if the forests are managed sustainably and all harvested lands eventually recover enough to fully repay the carbon debt incurred when the wood was extracted and burned.


Eventual carbon neutrality is not climate neutrality

Even under the best case where wood displaces coal, regrowth does not remove the excess carbon dioxide emitted by wood for many decades or more, and far longer if the harvested forests are growing today—as most are—and far more if wood displaces other fossil fuels. At that future time, wood bioenergy can be said to have achieved carbon neutrality. Until then, wood bioenergy increases the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere above what it would have been, accelerating global warming.

But is the climate impact of that additional warming reversed if regrowth finally removes the excess carbon dioxide? Is eventual carbon neutrality the same as climate neutrality?

The answer is “No.”

Even temporarily elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide cause irreversible climate damage (IPCC 2022; Solomon et al. 2009). The excess carbon dioxide from wood bioenergy begins warming the climate immediately upon entering the atmosphere. The harms caused by that additional warming are not undone even if the carbon debt from wood energy is eventually repaid: The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt faster, sea level rises higher, wildfires become more likely, permafrost thaws faster, and storms intensify more than if the wood had not been burned. Eventual full forest recovery will not replace lost ice, lower sea level, undo climate disasters, put carbon back into permafrost, or bring back homes lost to floods or wildfires. The excess warming from wood bioenergy increases the chances of going beyond various climate tipping points that could lead to runaway climate change: emissions “pathways that overshoot 1.5°C run a greater risk of passing through ‘tipping points’, thresholds beyond which certain impacts can no longer be avoided even if temperatures are brought back down later on” (IPCC 2018, p. 283). Carbon neutrality is not climate neutrality.

Why does it matter? We have already raised global average surface temperatures about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, and most of humanity already suffers from its effects (Callaghan et al. 2021, IPCC 2022). The consequences of warming beyond 2 degrees Celsius are expected to be devastating. Sea levels could rise by well over a meter by the end of this century, exposing millions of people to coastal flooding (Kulp & Strauss 2019). More than half the world’s people would be exposed to deadly heat waves (Mora et al. 2017). The yields of crops including wheat, maize, rice, and soy would fall even as the United Nations projects that world population will grow by billions (Zhao et al. 2017, United Nations 2019). Droughts, wildfires, and intense storms will become more frequent and extreme (IPCC 2018). Warming could push the Earth beyond various tipping points that could lead to irreversible harm (IPCC 2018). These impacts would intensify hunger, economic disruption, mass migration, civil conflict, and war (Burke et al. 2015; Hsiang & Burke 2014; Koubi 2019; Levy 2019). Scientists and nearly all nations on Earth therefore agree that global greenhouse gas emissions must fall as deeply and quickly as possible, reaching net zero by approximately midcentury.

Wood bioenergy moves the world in the wrong direction.

Policy implications

What can be done? First, policies that treat wood bioenergy as carbon neutral must end. These policies allow power plants and nations to ignore the carbon dioxide they emit by burning wood on the false assumption that those emissions are quickly offset by forest growth somewhere else, creating a “critical climate accounting error” (Searchinger, et al. 2009). The carbon dioxide emitted from wood should be counted the same way emissions from other fuels are: fully, at the point of combustion.

Second, subsidies for wood bioenergy must end. Subsidizing wood bioenergy means taxpayers are paying pellet and power producers to make climate change worse.

Third, the fact that wood bioenergy is worse than coal in no way justifies the continued use of coal or any fossil fuel. To avoid the worst harms from climate change we must not only keep the vast majority of remaining fossilized carbon in the ground, we must also keep the vast majority of the carbon in our forests on the land.

The good news is that existing technologies such as energy efficiency, and the use of renewables such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy, can meet people’s needs for comfort, light, mobility, communication, and other purposes. The costs of these technologies are falling rapidly, and in many places are already lower than fossil fuels (IEA 2021a). Innovations in clean energy, energy storage, smart grids, and other technologies are expanding our ability to meet everyone’s energy needs affordably. Unlike wood bioenergy, these technologies allow forests to continue growing and sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. Investments in energy efficiency and clean energy also generate multiple co-benefits including increased community resilience, jobs, and improved health and economic well-being, especially for low-income individuals and households (Belesova et al. 2020; Burke et al. 2018; IEA 2021a; IPCC 2018; Pollin et al. 2014; Shindell et al. 2018). In contrast, particulate emissions and other pollutants from wood bioenergy damage human health (Allergy & Asthma Network et al. 2016).

To keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, net greenhouse gas emissions must fall to net zero by approximately mid-century, less than 30 years from now. Wood bioenergy increases greenhouse gas emissions and makes climate change worse during these critical years and beyond, even if the wood displaces coal. More effective ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet human needs are available and affordable now. Ending subsidies and policies that promote wood bioenergy will reduce emissions and allow forests to continue to grow, preserving their vital role as carbon sinks that moderate climate change.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

Authors John Sterman and Lori Siegel received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors for this work. Author William Moomaw was supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Author Juliette N. Rooney-Varga was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant ICER-1701062.


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Investors cash in on food commodities as the poor go hungry

As food prices rose and war broke out in Ukraine, investors looking for a sure bet flocked into food commodities. The trend could be pushing prices up even further, with live-or-die consequences for the world's poor.

The war in Ukraine has had a huge impact on food prices around the globe

Rising consumer prices are aggravating food shortages around the globe, and investors looking to make a buck off food commodities could be making matters worse.

Food prices have risen sharply after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted global supply chains, causing shortages around the world. The price of food spiked even higher following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Both countries are major global suppliers of agricultural commodities, like wheat and sunflower oil.

"In Uganda, wheat and fuel prices have skyrocketed, making everyday goods like bread almost unaffordable to an ordinary citizen," Anna Slattery, external affairs manager at The Hunger Project, a nonprofit that works to end world hunger, told DW.

"In Malawi, our teams are reporting that the prices of maize grain, soybeans and cooking oil have increased significantly, over 50% in some places. The increase in prices is making it difficult for people to access these vital food items." 

An appetite for commodities

Investors trying to make money off the high demand for food and other commodities could be putting even more pressure on prices.

After the war broke out in February, commodity-linked "exchange-traded funds (ETFs)," a type of investment fund open to the public, saw a huge uptick in activity: By April, investors had pumped $1.2 billion (€1.12 billion) into two major agricultural ETFs, compared to just $197 million for the whole of 2021, Lighthouse Reports, an investigative journalism NGO, found out.

According to the news website The Wire, the Paris milling wheat market, the benchmark for Europe, has also seen a significant increase in the share of speculators — that is, investors whose primary aim is to turn a profit — buying up its wheat futures contracts. That's in place of commercial traders or hedgers, i.e. market players who have an interest in buying the commodity itself, for example to secure a wheat supply for a bread factory. 

Activity at the Chicago Board of Trade, one of the world's leading futures exchanges, also reflects this trend. A recent study by the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn found that the share of speculators in hard wheat and maize had risen with the price of the commodities, and that it had gone up sharply since the end of 2020. The researchers also found that the volatility of futures prices had increased significantly since the end of 2021, a sign of market irregularities that can lead to excessive speculation.

A sure bet

The ZEF report warned that more speculation could see prices decoupling from fundamentals, like supply and demand for example. It pointed to similar trends leading up to the global food crisis that emerged in 2008.

In April, analysts at investment bank JPMorgan Chase suggested that commodities prices could surge as much as 40% as traders pile in, creating an attractive return for investors.

Traders tend to move away from riskier investments, like tech stocks and cryptocurrencies, in times of economic uncertainty, favoring safer bets, like food and other hard commodities, like oil and fertilizer. Food commodities, like wheat, corn and rice, can also be adversely affected by market uncertainty.

"The more uncertainty in the market, the more demand for risk trading exists," Lukas Kornher, economist and ZEF project manager, told DW. "That is why we see the influx of speculative traders in the market."

It will take a huge effort by the international community to curb hunger in many parts of the world

Excessive trading

"[Speculative traders] basically try to jump on a bandwagon of increasing prices," said Kornher. "And then they start trading with each other instead of meeting the hedging demand of commercial producers or traders."

The price of the commodity can then become disconnected from its physical supply and demand.

Excessive speculative activity in commodities markets is "a double-edged sword," Dirk Bathe, press officer at World Vision Germany, a humanitarian aid group, said.

"On the one hand, speculation on scarce commodities can lead to drastically rising prices," he told DW. "On the other hand, this market functions like an early warning system," giving businesses and policymakers time to react.

Millions more pushed into poverty

The current price inflation and record-high prices at the commodities futures markets signal an expected scarcity within a couple of months, according to Kornher, who said the world was likely "on its way" to a food crisis.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s food price index was up 36% in April compared with the same month a year before, after hitting an all-time high in March. The World Bank's Agricultural Price Index also hit an all-time nominal high in the first quarter of the year, up 25% over a year ago. According to a World Bank analysis, for every one percentage point increase in food prices, 10 million more people are pushed into extreme poverty.

Experts have called for measures to protect food systems against speculation. Banks and investment funds could abstain from food speculation as part of their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policy, for example. They've also warned against countries responding to high food prices by turning to protectionist policies.

"We need to make sure that countries don't take export restrictions, don't take export bans that will only exacerbate the food insecurity we're seeing today," Arancha Gonzalez, trade expert and the former foreign minister of Spain, told DW. "This is what we learned in 2008."