Protesters target GIB annual review
Environmental groups Biofuelwatch and UK Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) have staged a protest in London this morning (25 June) at the first of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) annual review events.
Campaigners have criticised the GIB for investing almost £200 million into ‘dirty’ energy projects this year, including large-scale biomass power stations and waste incinerators.
Local residents and members of the Avonmouth Coalition Against Big Biofuels also presented GIB Chairman Lord Smith with an open letter highlighting fears about GIB providing finance for a ‘deeply unpopular’ biomass power station. According to a statement from Biofuelwatch, the station will require one million tonnes of imported wood each year.
The organisers of the protest suggest that GIB has invested ‘alarming sums’ of money into both large-scale biomass plants and waste incinerators, including a ‘substantial loan’ to Drax power station. Campaigners accuse GIB of fuelling forest destruction in North America as well as increasing air pollution and carbon emissions in the UK through loans to power station developers.
Campaigners have set out a number of demands that they are asking GIB to commit to during the annual reviews. These include: a revocation of its loan to Drax; a commitment not to finance four biomass stations in the south of England and Scotland; and to end finance for waste incinerators, which campaigners oppose on the grounds of air pollution.
Fifteen people attended the protest in London this morning, and another protest is scheduled to take place at the second annual review in Edinburgh tomorrow (26 June).
‘Unacceptable that dirty energy is financed’
Oliver Munnion, Biofuelwatch Co-Director said: “So far the Green Bank has given millions to big biomass and waste incineration plants – power stations that by their very nature burn carbon and release it into the atmosphere.
“The GIB's first big loan was to the UK's most polluting power station, Drax, and can be directly linked to the destruction of wetland forests in the southern US. It is unacceptable that dirty energy is being financed in the name of reducing carbon emissions.”
Liz Snook, a member of Avonmouth Coalition Against Big Biofuels, which is opposing the plans for a biomass power station near Bristol, said: "The city mayor is lobbying to try and stop industrial biomass in the region, angry local residents have been out on the streets three times in the last few weeks, and environmental activists have promised more port invasions and direct action if funding is granted.
“The Green Investment Bank needs to understand that if they fund biomass in the region we will make an international embarrassment of them whilst Bristol is European Green Capital 2015."
Biomass ‘dirtier than coal’
This is not the first time that environmental groups have protested against large-scale biomass installations. Indeed, biomass plants have been a source of contention in the UK, after the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace warned that burning virgin biomass stock, such as whole trees, can be ‘dirtier than coal’.
However, the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s ‘Renewables Roadmap’ estimates that by 2020, biomass could potentially provide between 26 and 42 per cent of renewable energy in the UK, and government expects to provide a subsidy for biomass of between £442 million and £736 million (though it is still working out its long-term policy).
Read more about GIB’s investments or about Biofuelwatch and UKWIN
