10 reasons why bioenergy is NOT carbon neutral, says IPCC author William Moomaw

William Moomaw¹, respected professor and lead IPCC author, wants to set the record straight. He spoke at the European Parliament last week to explain why bioenergy is not automatically carbon neutral and we are proud to present his video speech on EUBioenergy.com

You may have heard and so believe that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific intergovernmental body that among other things develops guidance on greenhouse gas accounting, confirms the zero emissions rating of bioenergy. Actually, this is not true but rather a gross misinterpretation of the original guidelines, or at most, only a partial implementation of them.

The European Union is one of the guilty parties of such misguided implementation and has not yet shown any real signs of changing its attitude. In this video of Professor William Moomaw’s speech at the European Parliament, he gives 10 reasons which clearly explain why bioenergy is not automatically carbon neutral.

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¹ William Moomaw is Emeritus Professor of International Environmental Policy and Founding Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is Chief Science Officer at Earthwatch Institute and Research Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts. He received his BA in Chemistry from Williams College and a PhD in physical chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a 26-year career in chemistry and environmental science at Williams College, he began working on climate change and other global issues including water, forests, oceans, agriculture, nitrogen pollution and energy, and has published many papers and reports in those fields. He was a science fellow in the US Senate where he worked on ozone depletion and energy policy in the 1970s. He was the first director of the Climate and Energy program at the World Resources Institute in 1988-89. He is a co-author of the Massachusetts state report on Visioning Forest Futures in 2010 and on climate change adaptation in 2011. He was a lead author of 3 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports and was coordinating lead author of 2 more including the Special Report on Renewable Energy and Climate Change.

Photo credit: Dolomiti, Italy (c) Ziga Radsel, Flickr Creative Commons