BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.

YORKSHIRE, England ― The vast Drax power station in north Yorkshire helps keep Britain’s lights on.  The Labour government is just the latest administration to pour subsidies worth billions of pounds into the plant, which burns tons of imported wood pellets every year to generate a big slice of the power the country needs ― a crucial role after global energy markets were upended by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Drax’s bosses also claim that, because their biomass operations are deemed climate-friendly, ministers will miss their net zero goals without it.   Yet its critics are growing in number and volume.  Climate campaigners shout greenwashing. Senior politicians who once backed Drax now trash its impact on the environment. The idea of relying on biomass long-term is “dangerous,” says one Labour backbencher.  All the while, Drax is locked in talks with the government over even more financial support, this time for upgrades which would secure its future and ensure its compatibility with stringent climate goals. At the same time, the U.K.’s leading financial watchdog is digging deep into its operations — an investigation which could lead to a hefty fine and another dent to the plant’s reputation.   POLITICO went inside.  INSIDE THE FACTORY  The Drax Power Station covers a sprawling 1,250 acre site near the Yorkshire village of Selby. Once a bastion of coal power, it is now the U.K.’s leading source of biomass, shipping in wood pellets from trees harvested in North America.   The plant consists of 12 cooling towers with chimneys taller than the London Eye. Its four biome domes are 65 meters high, each vast enough to house the Royal Albert Hall. These power its four biomass terminals, which meet 8 percent of all the U.K.’s energy demands. The pellets are moved around the site on a 25-carriage train, decorated with the Drax logo.   POLITICO navigated the narrow walkways above the factory’s giant terminals, wearing ear protectors to block out sounds of the factory floor, and squeezed into clanking elevators. Hi-viz workers dragged wheelbarrows of material around the site.  Successive Conservative and Labour governments have decided Drax is essential to the U.K. energy supply. Crucially, watchdogs and ministers also treat biomass as a renewable power source (because emissions are offset through planting new trees) — giving Drax a central role as the government strives to hit stringent targets on reducing emissions (known as carbon budgets.)  “It does help keep the lights on as a really big chunk of capacity. It is the single biggest potential point source of negative emissions in a country, making it very appealing when connected to carbon capture and storage,” said Adam Bell, former head of energy at the old Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, now director of policy at the Stonehaven consultancy.   “By itself it could make achieving carbon budgets considerably easier, which is why [the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero] like keeping it in play.” Money has flowed in.  Conservative ministers handed Drax an estimated £6 billion in subsidies between 2012 and 2024. Their Labour successors earlier this year unveiled £2 billion in fresh support.  Drax critics are growing in number and volume. | Lab Ky M/Getty Images The latest tranche of cash is designed to back Drax’s operations between 2027 and 2031, as it negotiates with government over upgrading the plant with carbon capture technology (CCS) which would catch and safely dispose of the carbon it emits.  “The situation that we inherited from the last government meant that we had to consider matters such as security of supply and how we could secure the best deal for bill payers. That is what we did,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told MPs in March.  “I’ve taken many a minister around the power station,” said Richard Gwilliam, Drax’s director of future operations. Miliband, for now at least, has not taken up the offer.   FROM RIGHT AND LEFT   But as ministers continue to strike deals with Drax, its critics are circling.  At the point of generation, green campaigners argue, Drax’s burning of wood pellets is more emissions-intensive than coal. The climate think tank Ember reckons the Yorkshire plant was the U.K.’s single largest source of CO2 emissions in 2024 — producing 13.3 million tons.  “Relying on millions of tons of imported wood to keep the lights on is dangerous,” Labour MP Alex Sobel wrote in The Guardian this summer, backing tighter government terms on the subsidies and slamming biomass as an alternative to clean energy like solar and wind farms. Former environment minister and fellow Labour MP Barry Gardiner is campaigning for the energy regulator to reopen investigations into Drax’s financial reporting.  Polly Billington, a Labour MP and member of parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, says she backs government efforts to introduce a “much stricter regime by tightening sustainability requirements, reducing the overall subsidy and closing profit loopholes.”  On the right, Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who approved Drax’s expansion plans  when she was in office in 2024, is now among its fiercest critics. “Going green by burning trees is absurd,” she said last month.   Reform UK’s Energy Spokesperson Richard Tice says his party would end the subsidies, calling the environmental damage “scandalous.”  But Drax insists that biomass, combined with carbon capture upgrades, is the only way for the U.K. to hit its green goals.   “If this country wants to meet its climate targets, I can’t see a way to do it without large scale carbon removal. That’s not [just] me, that’s the committee on climate change,” Gwilliam said. Last year Will Gardiner, Drax’s chief executive, warned the government’s 2030 decarbonization goal is in jeopardy if the company does not get its CCS in place.  The Climate Change Committee, in its seventh carbon budget, said: “While its role is limited to sectors where there are few, or no, alternatives, we cannot see a route to net zero that does not include CCS.”   Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who approved Drax’s expansion plans  when she was in office in 2024, is now among its fiercest critics. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images “I think we can find common ground on the economic value these projects can bring,” Gwilliam said. He has talked with other companies in the Humber about the value of local industrial jobs, he said. “These are highly skilled, good quality industrial jobs, which are being repurposed towards a sort of greater role than carbon intensity.” MEET THE REGULATORS  Away from the political pressure, the City regulator is also gunning for Drax. In August, it opened an investigation into statements the company has made about its biomass sourcing and the compliance of recent annual reports with listing and transparency rules.  In a separate probe, energy regulator Ofgem slapped the company with a £25 million fine last year, after finding the firm breached reporting requirements for its green subsidies.  Gwilliam twice declined to comment on the FCA’s ongoing investigation, instead referring POLITICO to Drax’s initial statement confirming its cooperation with the watchdog.   The FCA can impose regulatory sanctions including public censure and financial penalties. This year it has fined Barclays around £40 million and Monzo Bank £21 million for breaches.  Meanwhile, Drax executives are locked in talks with the government over long-term financial guarantees, mirroring those already available to wind and solar developers, to back the CCS upgrade plans, known as BECCS. Shareholders have been briefed to expect a decision by the end of the year. A green light would lock the U.K. in to supporting its power station for generations — to the horror of some Whitehall insiders.  “Giving it a BECCS upgrade would be a scandalous waste of money and will feed the net zero backlash more oxygen,” warned one former DESNZ official. “The company and supply chain is always going to be investigated for something or other because the business model and green credentials are fundamentally nonsense.”  But Drax remains bullish. “I hope we don’t see an erosion of the U.K.’s lead as a climate champion, and I think projects like this [BECCS] can be the poster child for the positive impact net zero can have on local economies,” Gwilliam said. A government spokesperson said that “sustainable biomass contributes to our decarbonization efforts.” They added: “Drax will operate for less time under a clean power system and will need to use 100 percent sustainably sourced biomass, with not a penny of subsidy paid for anything less. There will be substantial penalties for any failure to meet these strict criteria, protecting both consumers and the environment.”

LONDON — Britain should scrap its flagship target of cleaning up the power system by 2030 and focus instead on cutting energy costs, according to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s think tank.  In a new report published Thursday, The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) argued the government risked “getting the balance wrong” and blamed “decades of policy decisions” for Britain’s high electricity costs. It called on the government to shift away from its totemic clean power target, and prioritize making electricity cheap to preserve support for the net zero agenda. “If the transition continues in a way that raises costs, weakens reliability and undermines growth, it will fail both politically and practically,” the report said.  It is the second time the former prime minister, through the TBI, has weighed in on the government’s energy strategy. Earlier this year, Blair argued that global attempts to cut fossil fuel consumption are “doomed to fail” without a reset.  The intervention comes as Energy Secretary Ed Miliband faces increasing pressure to cut energy costs for struggling households, especially after the Labour Party pledged to cut them by up to £300 during last summer’s general election. Just last week, bosses of Britain’s largest energy suppliers warned MPs that the costs levied on bills — used to pay for grid upgrades and other green schemes — could continue to push up electricity bills, even if wholesale costs start to dip. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “This report rightly recognises that clean power is the right choice for this country. This Government’s clean power mission is exactly how we will deliver cheaper power and bring down bills for good. “Our mission is relentlessly focused on delivering lower bills for the British people, to tackle the affordability crisis that has been driven by our dependence on fossil fuel markets.” ‘RECIPE FOR PUBLIC OUTRAGE’ Opposition parties have seized on high electricity costs to hammer the government over its decarbonization plans. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho last week accused the government of creating a “recipe for public outrage” over its pledge to cut bills through the clean power plan. The TBI defended the 2050 net zero target and the shift to clean electricity, but does not pinpoint a specific date to achieve the goal. “Circumstances have changed” since Labour set the 2030 target, it argued, while “pushing the system too quickly risks driving up costs and undermining confidence.”  Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho last week accused the government of creating a “recipe for public outrage” over its pledge to cut bills through the clean power plan. | Rasid Necati Aslim/Getty Images The TBI also proposed a string of reforms to government plans, including cutting some carbon taxes on gas and bringing back a controversial proposal to overhaul the electricity market by slicing the U.K.’s single national wholesale price into different “locational” prices. The report’s authors reckon scrapping the carbon price support levy on gas would save the average household around £20 per year.  The report also called for the government to give Britain’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) a mandate to “monitor net zero delivery for cost-effectiveness,” phase out subsidies for the controversial Drax biomass power plant, and implement “radical reform” to the planning regime.  The 2030 target was “right for its time,” said the TBI’s Energy Policy Advisor Tone Langengen, who authored the report. “But circumstances have changed — the U.K. now needs more than a decarbonization plan, it needs a full-spectrum energy strategy built on growth, resilience and abundant clean electricity.”

Policymakers are overlooking a $370 billion market that will determine whether climate goals succeed or fail.  In the grand narrative of the clean energy transition, materials like lithium, rare earths and silicon dominate headlines. Yet the most strategically important materials for this transition may be hiding in plain sight, dismissed by policymakers as environmental villains rather than recognized as the enablers of human progress they truly are. The $370 billion blind spot Polyolefins — the family of materials that includes polyethylene and polypropylene — represent perhaps the greatest strategic oversight in contemporary clean industry policy Here is a reality check. Polyolefins represent a global market approaching $370 billion, growing at over 5 percent annually.1,2 They make up nearly half of all plastics consumed in Europe.3 By 2034, global production is expected to hit 371 million tons.4  Yet in the European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal — a €100 billion strategy for industrial competitiveness — polyolefins receive barely a mention.4 This represents a profound strategic miscalculation. While policymakers focus on securing access to exotic critical materials like lithium and cobalt, they overlook the fact that polyolefins are already critical materials— they simply happen to be abundant rather than scarce. In the infrastructure-intensive clean energy transition ahead, abundance is not a weakness; it is the ultimate strategic advantage. > While policymakers focus on securing access to exotic critical materials like > lithium and cobalt, they overlook the fact that polyolefins are already > critical materials. The EU’s REPowerEU plan calls for 1,236 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 — more than double today’s levels.4 Every offshore wind farm, solar array and electric grid connection depends on polyolefins. They insulate cables, protect components and form structural parts of turbines and solar panels. Every solar panel relies on polyolefin elastomers to protect its inner workings for up to 30 years, even in harsh weather.8 And every grid connection depends on polyethylene-insulated cables to carry electricity efficiently across long distances. 7 Multiply these requirements across thousands of installations, and the strategic importance of polyolefins becomes undeniable. Yet, currently, the policy framework treats these materials as afterthoughts, focusing instead on the relatively small quantities of rare elements in generators and inverters while ignoring the massive volumes of polyolefins that make the entire system possible. Beyond energy: the hidden dependencies The strategic importance of polyolefins extends far beyond energy infrastructure. As one example, modern medical systems depend fundamentally on polyolefin materials for syringes, IV bags, tubing and protective equipment. Global food security increasingly depends on polyolefin-based packaging systems that extend shelf life, reduce waste and enable distribution networks — feeding billions of people. Meanwhile, water infrastructure relies on polyethylene pipes engineered for 100-year lifespans. These applications are rarely considered alongside energy priorities — a dangerous fragmentation of strategic thinking. The waste challenge and a circular solution Let’s be clear, plastic waste is a real environmental challenge demanding urgent action. However, the solution is not abandoning these essential materials, it is building the infrastructure to capture their full value in circular systems. The fundamental error in current approaches is treating waste as a material problem rather than a systems problem. Europe currently captures only 23 percent of polyolefin waste for recycling, despite these materials representing nearly two-thirds of all post-consumer plastic waste.3 That’s not because the material can’t be recycled. The infrastructure to do so isn’t at the scale needed to collect, sort and recycle waste to meet future circular feedstock needs. Polyolefins are among the most recyclable materials we have. They can be mechanically recycled multiple times. And with chemical recycling, they can even be broken down to their molecular building blocks and rebuilt into virgin-quality material. That’s not just circularity, it’s circularity at scale. This matters because the EU’s target of 24 percent material circularity by 20305 is unlikely to be met without polyolefins. However, current frameworks treat them as obstacles rather than enablers of circularity. The economic transformation The transition represents an economic transformation, creating competitive advantages for regions implementing it effectively. A region processing 100,000 tons of polyolefin waste annually could capture €100-130 million in additional economic value while creating up to 1,000 jobs.6 > A region processing 100,000 tons of polyolefin waste annually could capture > €100-130 million in additional economic value while creating up to 1,000 jobs. At the end of the day, the clean energy transition must be affordable. Polyolefins help make that possible. They’re cheaper, lighter and longer lasting than many alternatives. Manufacturers with access to cost-effective recycled feedstocks can reduce input costs by 20-40 percent compared with virgin materials. Polyethylene pipes cost 60-70 percent less than steel alternatives while lasting twice as long.9 These aren’t marginal gains. They’re system-level efficiencies that make the difference between success and failure at scale. The strategic choice The real challenge isn’t technical, it’s institutional. Polyolefins sit at the crossroads of materials, environmental and industrial policy, yet these areas are treated as separate domains. There’s also a geopolitical angle. Unlike lithium or rare earths, polyolefins can be produced from diverse feedstocks — natural gas, biomass and even captured CO2 — enabling domestic production and supply chain resilience. This flexibility is a major asset, but current policies largely overlook it. > The path forward requires recognizing polyolefins as strategic assets rather > than environmental problems. The path forward requires recognizing polyolefins as strategic assets rather than environmental problems. This means including them in critical materials assessments — not because they are scarce, but because they are essential. It means coordinating research and development efforts rather than leaving them to fragmented market forces. Most importantly, it means recognizing that the clean energy transition will succeed or fail based on our ability to build infrastructure at unprecedented scale and speed. And that infrastructure will be built primarily from materials that combine performance, abundance, sustainability and cost-effectiveness in ways only polyolefins can provide. The choice facing policymakers is clear: continue treating polyolefins as problems to be managed or recognize them as strategic assets enabling the clean energy future. The regions that understand this integration first will shape the global economy for decades to come. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Grand View Research. (2024). Polyolefin Market Size, Share, Growth | Industry Report, 2030. Retrieved from https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/polyolefin-market 2. Fortune Business Insights. (2024). Polyolefin Market Size, Share & Growth | Global Report [2032]. Retrieved from https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/polyolefin-market-102373 3. Plastics Europe. (2025). Polyolefins. Retrieved from https://plasticseurope.org/plastics-explained/a-large-family/polyolefins-2/ 4. European Commission. (2025). Clean Industrial Deal. Retrieved from https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/clean-industrial-deal_en 5. European Commission. (2022). Circular economy action plan. Retrieved from https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/circular-economy-action-plan_en 6. Watkins, E., & Schweitzer, J.P. (2018). Moving towards a circular economy for plastics in the EU by 2030. Institute for European Environmental Policy. Retrieved from https://ieep.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Think-2030-A-circular-economy-for-plastics-by-2030-1. 7. Institute of Sustainable Studies (2025). EU Circular Economy Act aims to double circularity rate by 2030 EU Circular Economy Act – Institute of Sustainability Studies 8. López-Escalante, M.C., et al. (2016). Polyolefin as PID-resistant encapsulant material in PV modules. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 144, 691-699. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927024815005206 9. PE100+ Association. (2014). Polyolefin Sewer Pipes – 100 Year Lifetime Expectancy. Retrieved from https://www.pe100plus.com/PPCA/Polyolefin-Sewer-Pipes-100-Year-Lifetime-Expectancy-p1430.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BRUSSELS — The European Union is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, surpassing 1 million hectares burned on Thursday. Fires have burned 1,016,000 hectares — an area larger than Cyprus or around a third of the size of Belgium — since January, data from the bloc’s European Forest Fire Information System analyzed by POLITICO shows. This is the first time the EU hits the 1 million hectare milestone since EFFIS started keeping records in 2006. The previous worst wildfire season, in 2017, clocked just below 988,000 hectares. Nearly two-thirds of losses occurred since Aug. 5, when EFFIS showed only 380,000 hectares burned. The vast majority of the fires have occurred in the Iberian Peninsula. Spain accounts for more than 400,000 hectares burned, while in much-smaller Portugal, flames have consumed more than 270,000 hectares — or 3 percent of the country’s entire territory. In Spain, where records stretch back to the 1960s, this year is the worst fire season since 1994, according to government data. Both countries have endured searing heat in recent weeks, desiccating forests and turning the peninsula into a tinderbox. Climate change is exacerbating wildfire risk, bringing more frequent and intense heat waves and droughts. But scientists say that the main driver of the catastrophic fires in Spain and Portugal is an overabundance of flammable vegetation on abandoned land and authorities’ failure to take preventive measures. Spain’s special prosecutor for environmental issues this week opened an investigation into the lack of fire prevention plans. Wildfires also release large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, with the EU on track for a potential new record for fire-related pollution as well, EFFIS data shows.

BRUSSELS — Exhausted firefighters. Traumatized evacuees. Charred villages. Red horizons, all flames and smoke.  The dramatic images from wildfires tearing through Spain and Portugal year after year have become a mainstay of Europe’s increasingly blistering summers, a symbol of the devastation wreaked by climate change.  But while global warming fuels the flames, the Iberian Peninsula isn’t destined to turn into a fiery hellscape every year. Experts say that most of the damage is, in fact, preventable — if only authorities at regional, national and European levels would act.  “Climate change plays a role here, that’s for sure, but it’s not the main cause, and this cannot be used as an excuse for what governments must do in terms of prevention,” said Jordi Vendrell , director of the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit focused on wildfire management.  This year’s fire season is already the worst on record. Across the European Union, blazes have consumed more than 1 million hectares so far this year — an area larger than Cyprus. Most of that land has burned over the past two weeks in the Iberian Peninsula, where at least six people have died. The scale of this year’s disaster has kicked off an unusual reckoning in both countries as to why Spanish and Portuguese citizens are exposed to such a deadly threat each year.  “My house, my neighbor’s house, my entire town of Castrocalbón has gone up in flames because our authorities are incompetent,” 74-year-old Josefina Vidal cried out at a protest in the central Spanish city of León on Monday. Across the border in Portugal on Tuesday, mourners at a firefighter’s funeral declared Prime Minister Luís Montenegro persona non grata.  Politicians on both sides of the border are keen to avoid being held responsible, and are taking pains to blame the fires on uncontrollable factors like climate change and arson, or past decisions taken by their political rivals. At best, the debate centers on firefighting resources.  Yet experts say that preventing destructive blazes is both simpler and cheaper than fighting them. And the conditions that create firestorms are largely due to how countries manage — or rather, don’t manage — their land. THE CLIMATE FACTOR That’s not to say climate change isn’t playing a role.  The global increase in temperatures, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, does not spark fires. But it creates conditions for flames to spread with ease: More intense and frequent heat waves — such as the searing heat Spain and Portugal endured in recent weeks — dry out soils and plants, rendering forests and land more flammable.  Scientists stress that while halting global warming is crucial to avoid even worse heat waves and droughts, governments must also urgently minimize the risk of climate-fueled disasters. The scale of this year’s disaster has kicked off an unusual reckoning in both countries as to why Spanish and Portuguese citizens are exposed to such a deadly threat each year. | Brais Lorenzo/EPA In the case of fires, that mostly means ensuring there’s less stuff for flames to feast on.  While climate change is ratcheting up fire risk, “the fires we’re seeing are the result of decades of rural exodus and the absence of forest management,” said Arantza Pérez Oleaga, vice dean of Spain’s Official College of Forestry Engineers.  LEAVING THE LAND As more and more farmers and shepherds migrated to cities in recent decades, uncontrolled vegetation took over the forests, meadows, orchards and cropland they once managed. An estimated 2.3 million hectares of Spanish land are now abandoned.  This provides abundant fuel for catastrophic wildfires. The amount of biomass in Spain has surged by 160 percent over the past 50 years, said Eduardo Rojas Briales, forest expert at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.  Halting land abandonment is the key to preventing fires, experts say. Yet currently, with the rural population aging and struggling to make a living, it’s a trend that’s expected to continue.  “We need a strong primary sector,” said Víctor Resco de Dios, forest engineering professor at the University of Lleida. Crops such as olive orchards “traditionally served as firebreaks,” he added. “Now we have the problem that with rural abandonment, crops are less common.”  The wild shrublands and young forests that sprang up in their place may look like land returning to its natural state. But Resco de Dios says that the romantic “Disney ecology” vision many Europeans have of untouched nature is not only a fantasy — it’s actively dangerous.  “We need to make people understand that cutting trees is not an ecological crime,” he said. “On the contrary … if we plant trees and then we forget about them, then we’re just planting the fires that we’ll have in 20 or 30 years from now.”  Forestry experts, scientists and even conservationists agree: Letting Europe’s nature grow wild, without active management, is fueling the devastating fires.  Prevention, they say, means creating diverse landscapes, felling trees to create fire breaks, and developing a rural policy that ensures farmers and shepherds can make a living.  Crucially, it also means letting some fires burn, as long as they don’t spin out of control — ending what experts call a counterproductive policy of extinguishing all flames. In the Mediterranean, “our landscapes, they burn in the past, they are burning in the present, and they must burn in the future,” Vendrell said .  PREVENTION PARADOX Yet political debates about fire management tend to focus on fighting the flames when the land is already burning. In Spain, for example, conservative-led regions and the left-wing central government spent the past week trading blame over firefighting resources.  Experts say that preventing destructive blazes is both simpler and cheaper than fighting them. | Pereira Da Silva/EPA But governments more readily invest in firefighting equipment than prevention. Spain’s firefighting budget is double that of its prevention spending, even though preventing fires is much cheaper than fighting them.  “If we want firefighters to be able to stop a fire, of course, they have to have the means,” said Resco de Dios. “But … they cannot do their job, even if they have all the resources in the world, because the landscapes that we have do not allow them to work.”  Still, the task governments are facing isn’t easy, or cheap. Halting land abandonment will take significant long-term investment in rural communities, said Pérez Oleaga.  Stimulating demand for material such as wood is essential, she added. “There is a reason why there are fewer fires in places like Soria or the Basque Country,” where “the forests are pruned and managed because you still have sawmills and other businesses that make a living from the forests.” The Spanish environment ministry, which also oversees policies related to demographic change, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Portugal’s environment ministry blamed the fires on extreme weather, but said that the country was planning to invest €246 million a year until 2050 in measures to boost forestry industries and land management.  There are signs that fire prevention is getting more attention amid growing frustration over how authorities handle the fires. On Thursday, Spain’s special prosecutor for environmental issues opened an investigation into the lack of forest management plans in connection with the fires.  But all experts interviewed acknowledged that politicians have few incentives to take preventive action, given that the results are often not visible for years or decades after the next election.  “For a politician, the calculation is simple,” said Pérez Oleaga. “You can take a picture next to the firefighting plane you bought with EU funds, but you don’t get to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony when you use public cash to clean up a forest.”

LONDON — Kemi Badenoch’s new-look Conservative opposition is still working out the policies it wants to put before voters. But the U.K.’s net zero target is already firmly in the party’s firing line. The Tories, while in government, passed legislation to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Now Badenoch and her shadow team say the target damages the country — and they want to ditch it. Setting that aim in 2019 was a “mistake,” argued interim Shadow Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie. “What’s quite clear is that the setting of arbitrary targets with no clear plan on how to deliver them does not work for the country,” he told POLITICO in an interview, his first since stepping into the role while his colleague Claire Coutinho takes maternity leave. Bowie added: “It leaves us economically worse off, and at a competitive disadvantage to other nations as well. So yeah — Kemi’s absolutely right when she says that it was a mistake.” Former Prime Minister Theresa May signed the target into law weeks before leaving Downing Street in June 2019. But since her election as Conservative leader in November, Badenoch has distanced herself from one of her party’s largest legacies.  “We made it the law that we would deliver net zero by 2050, and only then did we start thinking about how we would do that,” she said in January. Badenoch insists she wants to tackle climate change but won the leadership contest after branding herself a “net-zero sceptic.” And she does not consider the target a vote winner. “What we have now is this zealotry where it sounds like it is absolute zero and people want to take us back to the stone age,” Badenoch told a podcast this week to mark her first 100 days in the job. “That is just terrible.” Bowie was May’s parliamentary private secretary when she signed the goal into law and he is now trying to align the two positions. “I don’t regret [the target],” he said. “I just — I regret, maybe, the way that we went about it.” His old boss May would “recognize the Conservative Party is under new management,” he added.  The party’s shift to disavow its old keynote green policy comes as it seeks to hammer Labour ministers over the government’s clean energy policy stall. Labour is sprinting to decarbonize the power system so that it runs on 95 percent clean power by 2030, with the promise this will cut energy bills. The Conservatives say it will force up costs in pursuit of a “misguided ideology.” Labour is sprinting to decarbonize the power system so that it runs on 95 percent clean power by 2030, with the promise this will cut energy bills. | Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images Bowie — who was an energy minister until last summer’s general election — has distanced himself from other policies pursued by his former department, including dishing out billions of pounds in government subsidies to the Drax biomass plant.  “I don’t think anybody can defend the eye-watering amounts of money that were funneled to Drax over the period that we were in government, and that’s why we’re taking the position that it needs to end,” he said.  His party will face up to some “hard truths” under Badenoch’s leadership, he said. Bowie previously admitted he and other former Conservative ministers should have moved quicker to roll out mini-nuclear power projects and gone “further and faster” on home insulation. The Tories face an uphill battle to win over the public — the party collapsed to its worst result in terms of seats at last year’s election, and is now behind the right-wing challenger outfit Reform UK, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.

At a time when the European Union is striving to increase its competitiveness through its Competitiveness Compass, the new ecodesign rules for solid fuel local space heaters (i.e. your wood stove) may do the opposite. The European Commission is rolling out its ecodesign requirements with the aim of achieving resource and energy efficiency while boosting the circular use of materials that help decarbonization, competitiveness and economic security. Manufacturers underline that they are keen to help achieve that objective, but what’s currently on the table is not fit for purpose.   European manufacturers warn that the draft proposal published on Jan. 24, 2025 will not only undermine European competitiveness, but also destroy a European industry that accounts for 11,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and around 200,000 jobs. Raymond Zantinge, president of the European Committee of Manufacturers of Domestic Heating and Cooking Appliances (CEFACD), said: “We are deeply committed and engaged in producing cleaner and greener ways to heat homes. However, innovation takes time. Setting unachievable standards to be met in unrealistic timelines derails our innovation journey. The draft text creates more uncertainty rather than achieving better outcomes. This is especially the case when new testing standards for products being rolled out are not scientifically backed. In fact, we can end up with products that are worse. Also, having these new standards come into force on Jul. 1, 2027 places an unreasonable burden on manufacturers, especially SMEs, with insufficient time for retesting, recertification and necessary product re-design. It feels very much like ideology getting in the way of science and, frankly, it risks jobs, growth and worse environmental outcomes.” The proposed requirements, in their current form, use widely untested and unreliable standards, that are not developed through the scientifically backed normalisation route approach through the European standardisation system (CEN). > It feels very much like ideology getting in the way of science and, frankly, > it risks jobs, growth and worse environmental outcomes.” > > Raymond Zantinge, president of CEFACD Manufacturers have underlined that a better roll-out would include reasonable testing standards as well as a more realistic period of five to seven years. This would allow for sufficient preparation and adaptation, aligning better with the industry’s capabilities and the goals of the European Competitiveness Compass. With over 41 million Europeans already struggling to keep their homes adequately warm, this roll-out plan leaves a large part of Europeans at risk of greater energy poverty. Many of us rely on local space heaters, particularly in recent months with the cold weather in Europe. This locally sourced technology is used to improve our everyday lives, providing comfort and essential heating while supporting Europe’s energy sovereignty. As we transition to renewable energy in Europe, energy prices remain high, and domestic stoves offer a stable and manageable low-carbon heat source that reduces the strain on electric grids and gas networks. These stoves are particularly vital for vulnerable rural populations, providing cost-effective means to heat homes amid the ongoing challenges of energy security and affordability. > These stoves are particularly vital for vulnerable rural populations, > providing cost-effective means to heat homes amid the ongoing challenges of > energy security and affordability. Maintaining woodland sustainably produces fuel and promotes rural economies and supports responsible woodland management. The decline of this sector would not only impact energy affordability, but also our maintenance of rural woodlands and the renewable energy mix. Biomass, including wood, is the main source of renewable energy in the EU and there are sustainabity requirements for the wood and wood pellets used for heating homes. By eradicating solid fuel local space heaters, the Commission risks undermining this portion of our renewable energy mix, which is an essential heating source for some Europeans. Manufacturers also warn against the decision-making process. CEFACD’s secretary-general, James Verlaque, said:“We are really concerned that the requirements propose elements based on an impact assessment that has not been made available to us. It is important that the Commission is transparent on the impact of its proposal as, based on our assessment, this legislation is not fit for purpose. Legislation with such a strong impact on the European economy deserves involvement from the European Council and the European Parliament. Bringing in standards that have such huge ramifications with one institution acting alone does not allow for the necessary democratic oversight that this deserves.” The industry’s ability to innovate and improve to produce ever-cleaner burning, efficient stoves has been demonstrated through significant advancements made in products since the first Ecodesign Directive came into force. This included  increases in the efficiency of products so that they require less fuel to generate heat. It has also included improvements to the combustion technology of appliances, reducing emissions. Furthermore, the industry has made progress on transitioning toward a circular economy model, with products that now mainly consist of almost completely recyclable materials and have a long life span to reduce waste. The industry is speaking up in an unprecedented fashion to ensure that this important European market is not destroyed to the competitive advantage of international players bringing  product to the EU. > The EU’s pursuit of environmental ambition must be balanced with needing to > protect jobs, support SMEs and ensure energy affordability. The EU’s pursuit of environmental ambition must be balanced with needing to protect jobs, support SMEs and ensure energy affordability. The proposed Ecodesign Regulation , in its current form, risk undermining these objectives by imposing unrealistic standards and unvalidated testing methods on the solid fuel local space heaters sector. By adopting a more balanced and scientifically grounded approach, the EU can achieve its goals of decarbonisation and competitiveness without sacrificing the economic sustainability of a vital industry. Transparent and inclusive policymaking, informed by thorough impact assessments, is essential to navigate this complex landscape and ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for all European citizens.