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The science is clear: burning wood to produce energy makes climate change worse for decades or more, time we do not have to avoid the worst harms from climate change (Photo: Sukhdev Singh)

Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad

On Wednesday (29 March), EU co-legislators are hoping to finalise the re-cast Renewable Energy Directive. They have a chance to correct a historic mistake on wood burning.

The science is clear: burning wood to produce energy makes climate change worse for decades or more, time we do not have to avoid the worst harms from climate change. Yet the EU and UK continue to declare that forest biomass is, in effect, zero carbon, allowing these nations to subsidize wood bioenergy and omit the ...

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The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s, not those of EUobserver

Author Bio

Professor John Sterman (MIT) is the Jay W. Forrester professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a professor in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also the director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. Professor Michael Norton is the director of the environment programme at the European Academies Science Advisory Council. Edward Robinson is the editor of the Land and Climate Review.

The science is clear: burning wood to produce energy makes climate change worse for decades or more, time we do not have to avoid the worst harms from climate change (Photo: Sukhdev Singh)

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Author Bio

Professor John Sterman (MIT) is the Jay W. Forrester professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a professor in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also the director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. Professor Michael Norton is the director of the environment programme at the European Academies Science Advisory Council. Edward Robinson is the editor of the Land and Climate Review.

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