Sign now: Stop burning trees for electricity

Wood pellets burning in flames

The race to fight climate change and shift to a renewable-powered future must not include false solutions. 

Burning forests for electricity – also known as biomass – is dirtier than coal at the smokestack and is destroying some of the most carbon-rich forests in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. 

The lie: we have been told that forest biomass is made with waste wood, tree tops and branches. The truth: whole trees and forests are being logged to burn in the name of ‘clean energy.’ 

The forest biomass industry is rapidly expanding because of billions in government subsidies across the world. Now’s the moment – while this destructive industry is still in its infancy – to cut these taxpayer handouts and stop it in its tracks. 

If this destructive industry continues to expand at its current rate in Canada, it will risk millions of hectares of primary and old growth forests – and the intricate delicate ecosystem that relies on their health. Us included. 

This calculated political distraction prevents critical, timely investments in REAL renewables. It’s time to listen to frontline communities and climate science, and stop the profit-driven sale of the most advanced carbon capture technology in our arsenal: standing intact forests.

Scientists, activists, organizers and academics agree: to win true climate action, we must move beyond burning. 

Sign the petition to demand that the Canadian government stop subsidizing the forest biomass industry and urge other countries to do the same.

To: Ministers Wilkinson and Guilbeault Click to see full petition text

The race to fight climate change and shift to a renewable-powered future must not include false solutions like biomass.

We're calling on you to end federal subsidies to the forest biomass (wood pellets) industry, and then redirect those subsidies to Indigenous land stewardship and reclamation projects, and real climate solutions in energy transitions like wind, tidal, geothermal, efficiency, and solar that leave no worker behind.

We're also calling on your to make domestic decisions that are in line with Canada’s international climate targets including:

    - Publicly signal and encourage provinces to suspend approvals of new wood pellet plants and instead support value-added milling, which creates more expansive and long-term job opportunities domestically.

    - Improve Canada’s domestic carbon accounting for forests and forestry to exclude areas that have never been logged as part of the "managed forest"; and account for forests in the same way as all other sectors, by comparing net GHG emissions in 2030 with those in 2005; and fully measure and report the impacts of all emissions associated with forestry.

Call on the Canadian government to stop subsidies for the forest biomass industry

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