Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Green intentions, brown outcomes

Rianne ten Veen 9th February 2021

If the EU does not address its role in domestic deforestation it will never reach its goal of carbon neutrality.

biofuel,biomass,palm oil
Rianne ten Veen

Even the most well-intentioned efforts can go awry. Policies meant to accomplish one outcome, or prevent another, sometimes have unforeseen effects. The European Union is not exempt.

At January’s Paris biodiversity summit, some four dozen nations together pledged to safeguard one-third of their land and seas. The EU joined the effort, vowing to plant three billion trees by 2030.

The ostensible purpose was preventing deforestation. The tragedy, however, is that Europe’s addiction to biofuels—meant to stave off environmental harm—has wrought the loss of much of its forest cover in recent years.

Stampede towards biomass

In the last five years, deforestation in the Baltics and Scandinavia has skyrocketed by half. What’s to blame is the EU’s renewable-energy directive, which called for countries to supply 20 per cent of their energy needs via renewable sources.

The result was a stampede towards biofuels manufactured from biomass. This is organic matter, including, but not limited to, animal waste; another form includes wood pellets, byproducts from forests. Strangely, the EU classified the latter as a carbon-neutral option, preferable to coal, which had a predictable result—widespread deforestation as European countries sought to profit from this new demand.

In 2018, the EU tweaked the directive, aiming for a 32 per cent renewable energy supply by 2030. The aspiration to protect and improve the environment is praiseworthy—but the road to hell can be paved with good intentions.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



Forests absorb 10 per cent of annual European emissions. The idea that wood pellets, drawn from forests, are renewable is at the very least far-fetched—at worst, downright dangerous. The EU has allowed a worthwhile goal to be pursued in the most problematic of ways and the result is worsening climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss.

Vicious circle

Not only does it take decades to restore trees—decades ecosystems on the tipping point do not have—but burned wood releases more carbon than coal, oil and gas. Worse still, destroyed old-growth forests are replaced by even-aged monocultures which retain up to 50 per cent less carbon.

Such tree plantations, which are oddly sometimes classified as forest because of commercial pressures, aren’t even allowed to develop naturally. In fact, they are often cut down well before they can absorb enough carbon to replace what is released when their predecessors were burned. This harvesting of trees releases still more carbon in what becomes a vicious circle of carbon debt.

Astonishingly, despite these trends, biomass is the source of more energy in the EU than solar and wind combined. Classifying biomass as renewable energy encourages rampant and practically irreversible deforestation.

The numbers alone tell a distressing tale. Loss of biomass increased across Europe by some 70 per cent between 2011-15 and 2016-18, with the Nordic region suffering especially devastating losses.

Disturbing tendency

Europe has a disturbing tendency to promote counter-productive climate policies which, as with the renewable-energy directive, cause far more harm than good. An instructive international example is palm oil, which has been banned for use (by 2030) by the EU as a biofuel—even as countries such as Malaysia, a major palm-oil producer, have made verifiable progress towards genuine environmental sustainability.

The result has been another case of unintended consequences: palm oil—which is present in up to 50 per cent of wrapped products—is replaced by alternative vegetable oils, such as soybean, sunflower or coconut. These replacements however ignore sustainable options, such as hemp oil, and are not neutral alternatives.

Indeed, as it turns out, they consume far more resources, requiring up to ten times more land and fertiliser to produce an equivalent amount of oil. The ban on palm oil thus only leads consumers in other directions manifestly worse for the environment.

Given that nearly 90 per cent of Malaysian palm-oil plantations have been marked sustainable—under the Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) scheme—such European sanction is unfortunate, wrongheaded and, frankly, nearly incomprehensible. Malaysia’s sustainability scheme meets targets Europe should advance and reward, such as on protection of labour rights, wildlife diversity and deforestation, markedly reducing environmental impact in the process.

The result has been a year-on-year decline in deforestation stretching back three years. Yet the EU continues to display a worrying intransigence, claiming on the one hand to protect the environment while acting on the other to harm it.

Double standards

The specifics of the two cases—biomass and palm oil—are different but the upshot is similar. While Europe’s economy may benefit in the short-term from the adopted approach, Europe risks losing in the long-term—not only as its economy struggles with the burden of accelerating climate change but as its status as an ethical exemplar falls into jeopardy. That means Europe’s ability to persuade other nations to take decisions and pursue policies in their joint interest will decline—and may just disappear.

When the European Commission meets this summer to revisit its climate strategy, on the quest for climate-neutrality, it must align its domestic and its international policies so as to end the double standards which have been defended for too long. The need has never been greater.

Rianne ten Veen

Rianne C ten Veen is a environment and disaster-management consultant working inter alia with the European Commission’s Erasmus programme, the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, other United Nations agencies, the Dutch Red Cross and the UK Green Party.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834676 bcba 6b2b3e733ce2 1 The End of an Era: What’s Next After Globalisation?Apostolos Thomadakis
u4219834674a bf1a 0f45ab446295 0 Germany’s Subcontracting Ban in the Meat IndustryŞerife Erol, Anneliese Kärcher, Thorsten Schulten and Manfred Walser
u4219834dafae1dc3 2 EU’s New Fiscal Rules: Balancing Budgets with Green and Digital AmbitionsPhilipp Heimberger
u42198346d1f0048 1 The Dangerous Metaphor of Unemployment “Scarring”Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp