Press Release: Protect Tropical Rainforests From Energy Transition Policies Based on Land Use
Photo: Adzwari Rizki/Trend Asia
Press Release
Road to COP 30: Global South Civil Societies Gather Voices Demanding Tropical Rainforest Protection From Energy Transition Policies Based on Land Use
Denpasar, February 28th, 2025 – Civil societies across the world met in Denpasar, Bali from February 25-26, 2025 discussing tropical rainforest protection that is increasingly threatened by energy transition policies based on land use. Forests are now being pushed to become a new source of energy, that will lead to massive deforestation. At the Conference of Parties (COP) 26 held in Glasgow, the acceleration of energy transition emerged as one of the solutions to combat climate change caused by fossil fuels which are the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases emission. But now, some countries are out to use false solutions for energy transition.
Peg Putt, coordinator of the Biomass Action Network, at EPN International, said:
The superior application of forests to address the climate crisis, and simultaneously the biodiversity crisis, is to protect and restore natural forests which represent huge carbon stores kept safely out of the atmosphere and continually drawing down more carbon. A flawed carbon accounting system fails to show biomass energy emissions in the energy sector alongside the emissions of fossil fuels, creating a false impression of zero emissions, or carbon neutrality, both shown to be completely wrong.
In the year 2021, renewable energy from hydro power took the lead, generating 4,257 TWh, and then wind energy and solar energy followed with 1,838 TWh and 1,034 TWh. Bioenergy is being seen as one of the “solutions” of energy transition that has a significant role, contributing 615 TWh. Asia maintained its position as the frontrunner in the growth of bioenergy generation, with a remarkable increase of 35 TWh in 2021.
In 2020, 685 TWh electricity was generated from biomass globally. The proportion of biomass resources is 69% of all biopower generated from solid biomass sources, predominantly wood, followed by 17% from municipal and industrial waste. Asia played a significant contributor to biomass supply, representing 40% of the global biomass supply. Europe stands out as the primary producer of wood pellets, contributing to more than 55% of the worldwide output. A new report from Environmental Paper Network, Burning Up the Biosphere: A Global Threat Map of Biomass Energy Development found that substitution of forest biomass (wood) for coal in large scale energy generators is projected to triple between 2021 and 2030.
As one of promoted energy transitions solutions, using biomass is a false solution, because biomass energy causes deforestation. Large supplies of biomass energy need monoculture tree plantations, driving deforestation. Trend Asia found that in Indonesia, the energy tree plantations need 7,781,626 hectare gamal plantations or 2,334,488 hectare lamtoro plantations. Additionally, burning forest biomass is equally as emissive of CO2 as coal per unit of energy produced, so there is no gain for the climate.
Ahmad Ashov Birry, program director of Trend Asia, said:
“For Indonesia, the promise of energy transition has in fact resulted in a massive deforestation and extraction of natural resources abroad that has almost no benefit for the greatest prosperity of the people. At the same time, Indonesia’s weak renewable energy mix target is still far from being achieved and coal production continues to increase. In the name of energy transition, for example, Indonesia’s deforestation due to nickel mining in 2023-2024 has reached 85,378 hectares, bauxite mining in 2023-2024 reached 58,103 hectares. Meanwhile, since the promotion of energy plantation forests for biomass and the opening of new markets for wood pellets, deforestation in forest utilization business permit areas in 2023-2024 has reached more than one million hectares. Ironically, deforestation due to coal mining continues to increase and reaches more than 1.3 million hectares in 2020-2024.
Florencia Librizzi, program director at Earth Insight, said:
Indonesia’s biodiverse, carbon-rich forests—home to 50 to 70 million Indigenous people—are facing an irreversible tipping point by 2040 due to the rapid expansion of biomass energy in power plants. Our report, Unheeded Warnings: Forest Biomass Threats to Tropical Forests in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, developed with partners, exposes the critical risks of this industry. The growth of biomass threatens not only the region’s ecosystems but also the livelihoods of Indigenous communities who depend on them for survival. Instead of relying on false climate solutions, we must embrace energy sources that are truly renewable, sustainable, and equitable. Urgent action is needed to prevent devastating and lasting consequences for both people and nature.
Not only bioenergy, transition mineral massive exploration ‘fueling’ the deforestation
Besides Bioenergy, clean energy technologies are still required for other forms of renewable energy. They will require a significant amount of minerals, making a low-carbon future mineral-intensive compared to fossil fuel based electricity generation technologies. For example, various technology choices are available for wind energy, such as turbine size and the orientation of rotation. Essential minerals like aluminium, copper, chromium, steel, nickel, zinc, and iron are required for the installation of wind turbines.
Copper, aluminum, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, and nickel play a vital role in various low-carbon technologies, making them essential elements for achieving a low-carbon future. The identification of minerals associated with energy technologies in the technology-based mitigation scenarios is not an exhaustive compilation.
Cross-cutting minerals, including copper, chromium, and molybdenum, find applications in a diverse range of clean energy generation and storage technologies and exhibit consistent demand patterns. On the other hand, concentrated minerals like lithium, graphite, and cobalt are specifically required for a limited number of technologies, resulting in greater uncertainty in their demand.
However, the extraction of these resources, often in forested areas, leads to deforestation. In the Philippines, extraction of minerals is one of the most notable threats to Philippine biodiversity. Over 50% of the country’s biodiversity areas have mining operations or applications. Bantay Kita noted that the Philippine’s government has projected an increase of 190 new mining projects within the next 4 years. The operations take place inside the ancestral domains of Indigenous peoples.
Except for Benguet and Palawan, the incidence of poverty in provinces in the Philippines where mining operates is higher than the national average. Both Indigenous and local communities’ traditional livelihoods such as farming and fishing are affected by nickel mining operations. However, mining contributes to only 0.8% of GDP in the Philippines.
Beverly Besmanos from Bantay Kita said:
A just energy transition ensures that Indigenous peoples and local communities on the frontlines of transition mineral mining and deforestation are treated with dignity and respect, and have equal access to the benefits of a carbon neutral future.
Energy transitions are also causing deforestation in Brazil, the country where the COP 30 will be held. In Brazil, deforestation is caused by gold mining to European Union countries’ needs. Data from Instituto Escolhas, 94% of the European Union gold imports from Brazil are exposed to a high risk of illegality.
The mining industry in Brazil causes deforestation and also affects Indigenous people. In 2021, Escolhas noted that there has been a seven-fold rise in deforestation caused by mining in the Amazon over the last seven years. The Indigenous people have fought against the rising tide of illegal activities on their land.
Larissa Araujo Rodrigues from Instituto Escolhas said:
In Brazil, mining is already driving deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands mostly because of gold. With the growing demand for minerals to fuel the energy transition, the situation risks becoming even worse. If we want a truly just transition, we must ensure environmental and social safeguards.
In Chile, deforestation leads to militarism. In Wallmapu, Mapuche ancestral territory, since the pandemic, the Chilean government declared a state of emergency. The forestry companies perpetuate historical violence against inhabitants, including the intimidation, dispossession, murder and disappearance of young people and women and activists.
Its implementation, forcibly promoted through Decree Law 701 at the beginning of the 1973 dictatorship, has been reinforced over the last 5 decades by prioritizing subsidies and benefits for companies instead of communities.
Diego Oyarzo from Collectivo VientoSur said:
Today we continue to fight for social justice by producing alternatives to extractive energy transition projects, recognizing them as false solutions to climate change and a new stage of colonial appropriation by world powers over the territories of the Global South.
Climate and Biodiversity Advisor Souparna Lahiri, an India-based representative of the Global Forest Coalition, explained:
Bioenergy, burning biomass and co-firing – neither contributes to low carbon energy generation nor to just energy transition. Rather are false solutions which distract from and delays immediate and rapid phase out of fossil fuels.
Moreover, these false solutions increase carbon emission, result in deforestation and loss of biodiversity, growing demand for monoculture plantations, dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and violations of their rights over their territories and violence over women in the affected communities.
An immediate and rapid phase out of fossil fuel is the foremost condition for a just transition which has to be just and equitable and should lead to an end to the colonial model of extractivism that has fostered capitalism responsible for climate crisis.
Souparna Lahiri added:
The emergence in the horizon of issues related to critical minerals and mining is a threat to just energy transition, community led and controlled model of renewable energy paradigm, and a shared vision of our mother earth where human can coexist with nature.
References:
[2] Hijacking the Energy Transition: Deforestation Threats Energy Plantations Tree
[5] https://escolhas.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/EuropesRiskyGold.pdf
[6] https://escolhas.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gold-above-the-law.pdf
Contact:
Widia Primastika
Media Manager Trend Asia
widia.primastika@trendasia.org
+62 812 8981 9660
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