Dale Vince is right that paying the Drax power station billions of pounds to burn forests is not a coherent climate strategy (Ancient trees are shipped to the UK, then burned – using billions in ‘green’ subsidies. Stop this madness now, 21 June) . Labour has already said these subsidies should not continue beyond 2031 – a welcome and necessary step.
Cutting down forests in Estonia, Latvia, the US and Canada is destructive to biodiversity. What’s more, it makes no climate sense – for forests to recover their role as lungs that absorb carbon dioxide takes decades. Biomass, of the type Drax uses, incurs a huge carbon cost.
