Tell Canadian politicians to cut ties with Drax

Drax' Medowbank pellet plant and log yard in Northern B.C. close to Quesnel full of whole trees about to be turned into pellets

We've been briefing and targeting Canadian federal politicians about the forest biomass scandal for a while now, but their policies are locked into carbon accounting loopholes that have enabled big corporations like Drax to scale up production in places like British Columbia. But recently, the tables turned.

Last month, a shocking BBC documentary revealed that UK-based energy giant Drax was logging forests in BC and shipping them halfway around the world to burn for electricity while claiming to use only waste wood.

Since this scandalous exposé, Drax executives are feeling the heat. And right now world leaders are at the annual UN Climate Conference COP27, so it’s the perfect moment to ramp up our biomass campaign and apply pressure from all angles.

Canadian politicians attending the climate talks need to feel public pressure to stop big corporations like Drax from scooping up precious taxpayer dollars earmarked for the clean energy transition to log and burn forests for fuel instead. Let’s send thousands of personal messages to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson to demand they cut ties with Drax.

Let’s send thousands of personal messages to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson to demand they cut ties with this scandal.

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Minister

Steven (personal email?)

Guilbeault

Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Minister

Jonathan

Wilkinson

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources

Dear {contact_data~lastName},

I was outraged to learn that Drax is logging and burning forests in B.C. for highly polluting electricity generation and branding it as 'clean energy'.

There is clear evidence from organizations, journalists, researchers and most recently BBC Panorama and CBC Fifth Estate that shows the “diseased and rotten” logs Drax claims only to use are a tiny percentage when looking at the Canadian Forestry database over the last year.

Drax has bought licenses, outbidding timber companies, to log primary forests (by the UN definition) in areas like British Columbia including in old growth ecosystems.

Former Chief Forester of B.C., Diane Nicholls’ sudden move from government to the VP of Sustainability for Drax North America is deeply concerning. In British Columbia, the biomass industry was granted harvesting rights to log for pellets in large part under her. This closeness usually precludes proper regulation.

It is deeply concerning that Drax now has a monopoly on forest biomass across the province, with a majority ownership in most BC pellet plants.

It leaves me wondering, is Drax and cooperative governments (like the B.C. government) deliberately misleading the public using the language of ‘residuals’, ‘waste’ and ‘low-value’ logs?

The science is clear, that burning forest biomass is dirtier than coal at the smokestack.

It takes many decades to centuries for forests to regain the majority of their carbon storage after being logged. International and national carbon accounting on this is flawed. Forests are most valuable in the fight against the climate crisis when they are kept standing.

To meet the scale of the crisis we face, we must move beyond burning.

Wood pellets are the lowest value production for forest communities while simultaneously devastating ecosystems and the planet.

We deserve true investments in clean energy and climate protection that does not devalue and mechanize away union jobs and respects the land, as well as communities.

Thank you,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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