Stop burning trees, Drax! Campaigners take to parliament over rogue biomass industry

Climate justice campaigners in London joined groups around the world on Monday 21 October. It was for an International Day of Action on Big Biomass. Campaigners staged a ‘Save Nature, Stop Burning Trees’ demonstration beside Big Ben to call for an end to subsidies for tree-burning in UK power stations like Drax in Yorkshire and Lynemouth in Northumberland.

Drax: stop burning trees

The International Day of Action on Big Biomass coincided with the start of the UN COP16 Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, and the activists drew particular attention to the devastating impact that logging forests to supply wood to burn in power stations like Drax is having on nature:

Drax, which is the UK’s single largest carbon emitter in the UK and the world’s biggest tree burner, receives around £1.5 million per day in renewable subsidies from UK energy bills to burn trees.

In London, campaigners held a ‘Save Nature, Stop Burning Trees’ banner protest and rally outside Parliament with signs saying “End biomass subsidies” to call on MPs to end renewable subsidies from UK energy bills for Drax’s tree burning and to say no to new subsidies for wood-burning power stations.

Pete Dean from Biofuelwatch said:

The UK government has promised us “Clean power by 2030” and announced plans to plant millions of trees. However, this will be completely undone if it persists with its plans to continue the life of the single largest tree-burning enterprise in the whole world. Drax power station gets public subsidies of almost £1.5 million a day, for burning trees taken from some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. We’re outside Westminster in London and across the UK calling on our MPs to stop new forest-destroying subsidies.

Much of the wood that Drax burns comes from clear-felled, biodiverse forests in the Southeastern USA and Canada. These forests are home to many rare and endangered species, including black bears, Wood Storks, Rusty Blackbirds and caribou.

Failing to act on the climate crisis

Robin Wells from Fossil Free London said in a speech at the rally:

We know that the governments of the world are failing to act on the climate crisis, even though they’re putting subsidies into things that appear to be green like carbon capture and storage or biomass. The truth of it is these are false solutions. The burning of trees in Drax Power Station can be as bad as burning coal, the worst fossil fuel available.

We need governments at this Biodiversity COP and at the COP in Azerbaijan to stand against corporations using greenwash to take our future, our lives and our good and thriving existences from us. For that to happen, governments need to get these corporations in line and they need to invest in real green solutions. They need to stop burning trees and axe Drax.

Merry Dickinson from the Stop Burning Trees Coalition said:

With record temperatures and extreme weather around the world, it’s never been more urgent for the government to protect our precious forests and stop funding tree-burning companies like Drax that are driving forest destruction, biodiversity loss, climate breakdown and injustice around the world.

For the sake of our planet, it’s vital for MPs to end renewable subsidies for Drax’s planet-wrecking tree burning and instead invest in genuine climate solutions like home insulation and wind and solar power that can create new green jobs and ensure a liveable future for everyone.

Biomass is not the answer, Drax

The government is currently considering whether to extend renewable subsidies for tree-burning companies like Drax beyond 2027. Last week, 15 NGOs including RSPB, Greenpeace, WWF UK and Friends of the Earth, wrote to the Government urging Ministers not to extend subsidies for burning wood because of the disastrous impact of the biomass industry on nature, communities and the climate.

Last week, an investigation by the Financial Times into Drax’s internal emails revealed that the company was: “highly likely” to have burnt wood sourced from old-growth forest areas in Canada deemed to be environmentally important.  In February, a BBC Panorama investigation found that Drax is continuing to burn rare forest wood from British Columbia in Canada.

Featured image and additional images via Biofuel Watch