{"id":11022,"date":"2024-04-24T12:51:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T12:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comiteschonelucht.nl\/?p=11022"},"modified":"2024-05-02T19:44:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T19:44:40","slug":"letter-vattenval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comiteschonelucht.nl\/en\/letter-vattenval\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbreviated version of the letter sent to Vattenfall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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English version<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Read the complete letter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This text is an abbreviated version of the letter sent to Vattenfall in connection with their Annual General Meeting on 29 April 2024<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State-owned Vattenfall’s promise to be “fossil-free within a generation” is a textbook example of greenwashing. It sounds good to the general public, who are already exposed to a flood of greenwashing and who believe that there is a real climate effort behind words like “net zero 2045”, “fossil free”, “sustainably produced biomass”. However, the term “fossil free” is meaningless when it does involve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. And why does Vattenfall aim for this within a whole generation? The IPCC makes it clear that we have years – not decades – to drastically reduce the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past five years, we have been calling on Vattenfall to cancel its plans for new biomass plants, stop importing and trading wood pellets, and to shift all of its investment to funding truly renewable energy and energy efficiency. Vattenfall has ignored our demands. They continue to burn significant amounts of fossil fuels and to increase their investments to burn more wood, which emits no less carbon dioxide than burning coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also rely on millions of euros in subsidies, but spend the money on greenwashing and fighting us in court – instead of implementing the urgent energy transition that the climate crisis requires of society in general, and of state-owned companies in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The science is clear: we urgently need to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions while rapidly increasing forest restoration and protection. Burning forest biomass is counterproductive for two reasons: it increases emissions and also reduces forest carbon stocks. But Vattenfall has started building its second largest biomass plant in Sweden to-date. They have submitted a preliminaryapplication for a new 90 MW biomass plant in Berlin, despite the proven potential for truly climate-friendly heat production there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is talk of ‘sustainable biomass’, but 72 percent of the wood burned in Vattenfall\u2019s biomass plants in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands comes from Sweden, where forestry practices are among the worst in the world. More than 97 percent of all logging is done through so-called \u201cregeneration felling\u201d, i.e. clear-cutting of forests, including old-growth forests, followed by tree monoculture planting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When these forests are cut down, huge amounts of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Even more CO2 is released when the land is prepared for planting trees in monoculture plantations, harming both the climate and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time for further expansion, clear-cutting and replanting of trees is over. Yet Vattenfall continues to financially support the forestry companies that continue with this harmful “business as usual” practice: expanding into the last remaining healthy forests and clear-cutting entire ecosystems in favour of tree monocultures. In other words, we are not simply losing branches and treetops due to the logging-explanation taking place, and that Vattenfall is contributing to, we are systematically losing pristine, irreplaceable ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this background we have the following questions for Vattenfall:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf How long does it take for nature to regenerate a branch that was part of an, for example, 130 year old tree? And how does that compare to the very limited time at hand in which we drastically need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions concentration in the atmosphere if we want to prevent potentially irreversible harm to the world’s population and the planet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  How long does it take for nature to restore the carbon stock that is lost when a continuity forest is logged via the FSC certified regeneration-forestry model? In other words, how big is the carbon debt inherited in the so-called \u201cresidual biomass\u201d you buy from the current FSC-certified forestry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  Why does Vattenfall only aim to be fossil-free, and not to reduce greenhouse gases emissions? And why only within a whole generation? In other words, why rely on the climate-damaging burning of forest biomass while you choose to phase out fossil fuels way too slowly? Given the rapid escalation of the climate crisis and the growing evidence that irreversible climate tipping points may be close, how can state-owned company Vattenfall proudly claim that it is enough to become fossil-free as late as within an entire generation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  Why did you decide to spend money on greenwashing campaigns instead of initiating the much-needed energy transition that the climate crisis demands from us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  Even the forestry sector itself states that bioenergy and clear-cutting will increase emissions in the coming decades. Why does Vattenfall still claim that bioenergy from forest wood is a climate solution? The European Commission\u2019s Joint Research Committee (JRC), the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the IPCC clearly state that emissions must be significantly reduced this decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  When can you give us a guarantee that you have stopped doing business with forestry companies\/subcontractors that establish and maintain climate and environmentally harmful FSC-certified monoculture tree plantations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  When can you give us a guarantee that you have stopped doing business with forestry companies\/subcontractors that cut down continuity forests in Sweden, and old-growth forest in the Baltics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  Will you finally withdraw your strongly opposed proposal for a new biomass plant in Diemen, since the highest court (Council of State) in the Netherlands annulled the environmental permit and thus the eligibility conditions for 400 million government subsidy have lapsed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf  Why are you pushing ahead with an application for a new biomass plant in Berlin, when low-carbon alternatives are available, and when you already have agreed to sell its assets to the city?Lastly, there is no doubt that we must immediately end all fossil fuel combustion \u2013 this is one of our core demands for Vattenfall. But we cannot replace them with other, even more polluting and nature-destroying fuels with even higher emissions, such as woody biomass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Agnes Hjortsberg, Fridays For Future Sweden <\/strong>
Lina Burnelius, Skydda Skogen, Sweden<\/strong>
Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, UK<\/strong>
Fenna Swart , Comit\u00e9 Schone Lucht, Netherlands <\/strong>
Jana Ballenthien, ROBIN WOOD, Germany<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n