Outlook-for Low Carbon Bioenergy

It could be argued that the global response to date has arrested the previous rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions and there has even been unprecedented sustained economic growth simultaneous with a reduction in GHG emissions. However, the contributions declared by individual countries to date do not reach ideal targets. There is undeniably a huge potential for well-designed bioenergy systems to use sustainable feedstocks to deliver much-needed greenhouse gas reductions. Sustainable feedstocks are the basic starting point for any sustainable bioenergy system. Fortunately, there are many examples of sustainable biomass production that have positive impacts, but this cannot be assured simply by feedstock category or description. In order to reap maximum benefits from bioenergy systems, there is a need to evaluate their effectiveness, which is done in a number of different ways, and a need to value the carbon reductions achieved through some form of reward system, though there seems to be no political will to enforce such a policy at present.