Enviva's Key Takeaways After Attending COP27

Enviva was delighted to participate in events at the United Nations 27th Climate Change Conference , COP 27, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Our conversations there with policymakers and business leaders reaffirmed the essential role sustainable wood bioenergy plays in solving both short- and long-term challenges in our global energy transition.

Our dialogue focused on the challenges currently facing the international community, including the global energy crisis and its impact on international climate goals.

From the outset, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reminded participants of the scale of the challenge. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” he said in his opening remarks. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact.”

Mr. Guterres’ comments underlined the continued scale and importance of the climate mitigation challenge – a message that has been clear for the last decade of COP summits. However, there were also important emerging themes at this year’s conference.

First, sadly it was inevitable that the impact of the global energy crisis sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a point of discussion, as COP attendees raised concerns as to whether this will result in backsliding on climate goals. We are all rightly worried about the impact of soaring energy prices set against the backdrop of many European countries extending the lives of coal assets and securing new gas supplies to reduce and replace dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

While these are certainly concerning developments, most at COP were optimistic that the fossil fuel price and consumption spikes are a short-term trend, while over the longer-term clean energy investment would increase as nations realize that accelerating renewables adoption is good for energy security and affordability as well as the planet. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recent World Energy Outlook finds that global investment in clean energy is trending up sharply, from $1.3 trillion in 2022 to over $2 trillion annually by 2030. The annual report was also able, for the first time ever, to present a scenario based on today’s policies that shows global demand for every fossil fuel peaking or plateauing by the mid-2030s.

Of particular note for COP participants was the U.S. Congress’ recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes some $370 billion in spending for clean energy technologies, as?proof of America’s commitment to the energy transition.

“It’s notable that many of these new clean energy targets aren’t being put in place solely for climate change reasons,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said recently . “Increasingly, the big drivers are energy security as well as industrial policy – a lot of countries want to be at the leading edge of the energy industries of the future.”

Second, the large presence of the business community in Egypt reinforced that the commitment shown at COP26 was not a flash in the pan – the private sector remains all-in on the energy transition. For much of its history, COP was largely limited to energy and environment ministers and government negotiators involved in writing and negotiating the various agreements forged over the years – from the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement.

More recently, and particularly in Glasgow last year, COP has expanded to include tens of thousands of participants from a range of industries, NGOs, and grassroots climate advocates – with multiple conference zones, scores of panels, discussions, and other events covering myriad climate and energy-related issues. It is a positive development to see so many stakeholders continue to engage in the discussion at COP – a real recognition that it is going to take all of us doing our part to achieve reduced greenhouse gas emissions on a lifecycle basis globally.

Third, a common theme we heard was the need for speed. The question was often asked: What solutions can we deploy now to speed this transition?

The reality is, we already know what the solutions available to accelerate the energy transition are, they just need perfecting, scaling, and support. For example, this February, the IEA charted a pathway to end Europe’s reliance on imported Russian fossil fuels, in part, by increasing the use of sustainably sourced wood biomass. Even before this, when releasing their landmark plan to reduce emissions by 55 percent, the European Commission showed the EU must increase its use of bioenergy by more than two-thirds to meet its 2050 climate targets.

What is more, sustainable wood bioenergy is already part of the solution – with Enviva alone helping displace around -50 million metric tons of coal since inception. Today, bioenergy is widely available, sustainable, scalable, and reliable. It has proven to be an essential feedstock for heat and power – making up well over half of the European Union’s renewable energy.

Pictured above: Enviva's Jason Eberstein , VP of Government Relations (left), and Jens Price Wolf , VP of Commercial, General Manager Europe (right).

And there is still so much potential for us ahead as we provide the foundation for reducing lifecycle GHG emissions in some of the hardest to abate sectors such as cement and steel, and help to put the “net” in “net-zero” through negative emissions technologies such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). And of course – as was clear from discussions at COP27 – playing a significant role in helping to scale-up Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) , a key solution for mitigating the climate impacts of air travel.

On all these counts, we return from Egypt even more convinced that our mission to displace fossil fuels, grow more tress, and fight climate change is even more essential than ever before.

By Andrew Georgiou , Enviva Director, Policy and Regulation Europe?