Dear friend and news follower of the Clean Air Committee,

Sometimes things go well, sometimes things go wrong.
But last week we took another big step forward with the fantastic news of the adopted biomass motion in the House of Representatives. The motion was submitted by the Party for the Animals and National Social Contract (NSC) and, with the exception of the Christian Democrats (CDA), Conservative-liberals (VVD) and the Farmers Party (BBB), all parties agreed to the following task for the cabinet:

1. Message cabinet
➜ DISCOURAGE the import of woody biomass from abroad;
➜ NO more new subsidies to be provided for woody biomass from abroad (see motion).

On behalf of the forests, we thank the two tough MPs, who took the lead in this and never gave up! This political victory gives us energy to keep the biomass campaign alive to ensure that forests, biodiversity and air quality are not subordinated nor forgotten from the political agenda, both in NL and abroad.

2. Developments in the Never Ending Story “Vattenfall’’ | #VATTENFAIL
In addition, in the beginning of this week we published the press release about our new Vattenfall promotion, which we organize every year together with our colleagues from Sweden, Germany and England (read the comple letter here). Over the past five years, as every year on the day of the annual shareholders’ meeting in Sweden, we have called on Vattenfall to stop its plans for new biomass power stations in Europe, including the Netherlands.

Read our opinion article on Vattenfall (het Parool, May 23rd, 2024).

Also read the opinion article in the Swedish Aftonbladet of last week.

4 Authors from Sweden, Holland, Germany and UK in the Swedish Aftonbladet calling on Vattenfall to take responsibility and end their biomass plans.

Vattenfall; magic games with words

It certainly sounds good to the general public that Vattenfall constantly talks about ‘net-zero in 2045’, ‘fossil-free’ and ‘sustainably produced biomass’ in its campaigns worldwide. But of course the concept of ‘fossil-free’ is completely meaningless if it is replaced by an even more polluting alternative such as the systematic burning of forest biomass for energy.

3. Answers to parliamentary questions and our response to the new PBL report
Finally, last week on April 24, the government advisory body, the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) published the new climate report “Climate neutral trajectory exploration 2050.”

The report is again a very technical calculation- excel- report with energy and biomass flows in exajoules. It is difficult and abstract to imagine the numbers. However, it is shocking to imagine the quantities expressed in millions of tons when talking about biomass. In the report, the PBL speaks out against CO2 capture and storage (CCS for short) as a method to make power plants more sustainable.

This is very interesting because energy company RWE wants to convert its Eemshaven and Amer coal-fired power stations to 100% biomass combustion with CCS (BECCS for short). Read our criticism of this here, we published in Dutch national newspaper last week  ‘De Volkskrant’’: “After years of discussion the Dutch government is advised by the PBL institute (that monitors the quality of the living environment) to continue with polluting and unhealthy biomass power plants”.

Parliamentary questions

Also, this week there were answers to parliamentary questions about new government subsidies for renewable energy. Almost all parliamentary groups asked the Dutch Climate Minister, Rob Jetten, questions about the how and why of subsidizing CCS (as part of BECCS). The minister added this to his proposal for the new subsidy rounds (SDE++ 2024).

It is interesting how the Climate Minister answers. He does provide answers, but the question is whether he answers (long) outstanding questions. In any case, it gives the impression that the minister himself does not know or does know but does not want to say. 

For example, the minister says:

“This category (subsidizing CCS) ‘can’ lead to negative emissions. The minister says ‘can’, not ‘will’. This is because the CCS (and BECCS) technology is not a scientifically proven technology. However, the minister already indicates that the ( billions of euros) subsidies are necessary. The minister then concludes with the same mantra that has been applied – one on one – to biomass combustion over the past five years: “Negative emissions are desperately needed in the long term to achieve the climate goals.”  

These kinds of answers not only take us even further away from (a clean) house (Dutch expression), it also makes it clear what the minister is up to. Not for answers to real questions, not for solutions to major ecological problems, and not for a long-term vision for a smarter, cleaner and truly emission-free energy transition.

4. Join us and support our work for clean air!

All these latest developments require new action. Action through new information campaigns, manifestations, street actions in collaboration with science and concerned citizens. But also new legal procedures, such as those we have initiated against Vattenfall and RWE. 

Join us! The Clean Air Committee is not sponsored by the Postcode Lottery, government, etc. and does not want it to be. We operate independently, based on an interest and a goal, namely: towards clean air as a fundamental right and the protection and expansion of forests & biodiversity, and therefore against the biomass industry.

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We greatly appreciate contribution. Thanks to your support we can continue this work.

Maarten and Fenna 
On behalf of the Team of Comite Schone Lucht (the Clean Air Committee)

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