Repairing What Policy Is Missing Out on: A Constructive View on Prospects and Preconditions for Sustainable Biobased Economy Options to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change

Abstract

Biomass use for energy and materials is, on the one hand, one of the key mitigation options to reach the 1.5 °C GMT target set in the Paris Agreement, as highlighted by the IPCC and many other key analyses. On the other hand, particularly in parts of the EU, a strong negative connotation has emerged in public debate and EC policy, with a particular emphasis on the (presumed) displacement effect in markets and land use. This is a remarkable contrast because the reasons to use sustainable biomass, on the one hand, and the possibilities and synergies for supplying sustainable biomass, on the other, are underpinned with strong evidence, also providing insights on how displacement issues can be avoided. Sustainable biomass supplies can contribute 20–30% of the future global and European energy supply, leading to reduced overall mitigation costs, including realizing the net CO2 removal from the atmosphere using BECCS concepts. This paper highlights which options, pathways and preconditions are key to achieving such a substantial contribution of sustainable biomass in future (2050) energy and material supply (with a focus on the European setting). By pinpointing how “biomass can be done right” and how important synergies can be achieved via better agricultural methods, the restoration of marginal and degraded lands and the adaptation of climate change, a different policy agenda emerges in sharp contrast to how a biobased economy has been framed in recent years. It is recommended that future policy priorities, particularly at the EU level, take a more integral view on the synergy between the role of biomass in the energy transition, climate adaptation and mitigation, better agriculture and the better use of land in general. Strategies to achieve such positive results typically require an alignment between renewable energy, and agricultural, environmental, mitigation and adaptation policies, which is a largely missing nexus in different policy arenas. Resolving this lack of alignment offers a major opportunity, globally, to contribute to the European Green deal and improve energy security.

A Study on the Synergy of Renewable Energy Policies in Shandong Province: Based on the Coupling Coordination Model

“…The current research on policy synergy includes international case studies, experience synopses, research overviews, current situation analyses, law explorations [10][11][12][13][14][15], proposals or frameworks for enhancing policy synergy [16][17][18], the interplay and synergistic effect among different types of policies [19], and the design of measurement models from policy instruments [20,21], policy subjects [22,23], policy structure [24], policy effectiveness [25], and policy objectives [22] to study policy synergy evolution [26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

External Environmental Costs of Solid Biomass Production against the Legal and Political Background in Europe

“…Sustainable supplies of biomass can constitute 20-30% of future global and European supplies of energy, leading to a decrease in the total costs of alleviating climate change, including the removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere [73]. The cited author also identified the conditions that would allow for the obtaining of an adequate amount and quality of biomass, for example better agricultural technologies, especially for the remediation of marginal and degraded land resources.…”