In coinciding with the Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), banner protests are taking place in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. People are protesting against Vattenfall’s investments in wood bioenergy as well as continued fossil fuel burning.
A group of young climate activists from Fridays For Future Sweden, including Greta Thunberg, also attended Vattenfalls AGM, where they addressed Anna Borg, CEO of Vattenfall. Fridays For Future unfolded a banner with the text “Stop Greenwashing”.
“How long will you continue to greenwash and lie? No matter what you pretend and tell yourselves to clean your conscience, we see through your lies. Do you really believe you are on the right side of history?” said Greta Thunberg, Fridays for Future Sweden, during the AGM, addressing the CEO.
“Why is Vattenfall continuously claiming to be sustainable and moving in the right direction while actively expanding climate-disastrous operations in multiple countries?” said Anton Foley, Fridays for Future Sweden, during the AGM, addressing the CEO.
Outside of Vattenfall’s AGM, Fridays For Future Sweden and Protect the Forest handed out a green-washing bingo for journalists and participants to use during Vattenfalls AGM.
“Being ’fossil free’ means nothing if it doesn’t result in decreased emissions. We must phase out all fossil fuels immediately, but we cannot replace them with other destructive high-carbon fuels. The science is clear: we need to decrease our emissions at source, while simultaneously increasing the forest carbon stock. Burning forest biomass does the opposite: over the all-important next years and decades, it will both increase emissions and decrease forest carbon stock – moving enormous amounts of C02 from the forest into the atmosphere,” said Lina Burnelius from Protect the Forest Sweden.
“The pledge by the state-owned company Vattenfall to be ’fossil free within a generation’ is a textbook example of greenwashing. It certainly sounds good to the general public, who are drowning in a flood of greenwashing and, as a result, believe that words like ’net-zero 2045’, ’fossil free’, and “sustainably produced biomass” mean real climate action. However, the term “fossil free” is meaningless as long as it does not lead to reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Aiming for this, already inadequate goal, first within a whole generation is totally out of touch with reality. We have years, not decades, to make the drastic and necessary change that is needed. The fact that a state-owned energy company is deliberately – and publically – sacrificing our future is a complete betrayal,” said Greta Thunberg, Fridays for Future Sweden.
In Brussels, Martin Pigeon, Forests & Climate campaigner with Fern, an NGO defending forests and the rights of people depending on them, said:
“Vattenfall has been lobbying in Brussels against any meaningful reform of the EU’s biomass rules, which currently reward energy companies for burning forests in the middle of a climate and biodiversity crisis. This short-sighted and irresponsible campaign was partly successful thanks to the Swedish government abusing its role as the then Presidency of the EU Council. We demand that Vattenfall stops investing in forest destruction and greenwashing such destruction.“
Campaigners across Europe are calling on Vattenfall to immediately cancel its plans for new wood bioenergy capacity, to abandon its wood pellet and woodchip trading activities and to rapidly phase out all of its coal, gas, and biomass burning and replace it with non-emissive truly renewable energy and investments in energy conservation.
“In 2022, under great pressure from nature groups and scientists worldwide, the Dutch Minister of Climate stopped all new biomass subsidies. Vattenfall did not care about this and continued to push for subsidies. Subsequently in 2023, the highest Dutch court annulled the environmental permit of Vattenfall’s planned biomass power plant in Diemen (near Amsterdam). Yet Vattenfall once again applied for 400 million euros in biomass subsidy. This request was secretly granted by the minister, a year after he had issued a ban. The Clean Air Committee has appealed this decision. Vattenfall continues to be silent about its subsidies and biomass plans and systematically refuses to be open about where it wants to procure wood from. The claimed sustainability of the biomass is therefore completely unverifiable and misleading,” said Fenna Swart of the Clean Air Committee (Comite Schone Lucht).
“Vattenfall wants to see ever more wood being burned in heat and power plants in Berlin. The amount of wood burned is to increase from around 100,000 tonnes a year at present to as much as 1.6 million tonnes in 2030. That is a 1,600 % increase! Anything the operators can get hold of would be burned. Most of the wood already comes directly from the forest, a small amount comes from Short Rotation Coppicing plantations, and, in future, some waste wood would also be burned. This would require domestic as well as imported wood. In Germany, available wood is becoming scarcer, and forests are already badly damaged from recent years of drought. Increased competition with wood products industries can be expected,“ said Jana Ballenthien from ROBIN WOOD.
“Vattenfall boasts about being a leader in the energy transition, yet it is transitioning away from fossil fuels far too slowly, while locking regions in different countries into long-term dependence on district heating from high-carbon, environmentally harmful wood burning,” said Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch.
“Vattenfall has signed a contract to sell its heat network and plants to the city of Berlin. Berlin must now find a better path than the current one, which harms climate and species, while Vattenfall gets out of its responsibilities by selling instead of transitioning,” Jana Ballenthien from ROBIN WOOD, adds.
Photos from Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and the UK can be found here.
Additional reading and key materials
Flyer in the form of a Greenwashing-bingo is uploaded here
Open letter sent to Vattenfall on the 24th of April 2024:
https://skyddaskogen.se/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/open-letter-to-vattenfail-april-2024-.pdf
Opinion piece in Aftonbladet on the 24th of April 2024: Klimatorganisationer: Vattenfall måste sluta bränna bränslen
Briefing VATTENFALL’S WOOD BIOENERGY INVESTMENTS AND PLANS
Contacts
Lina Burnelius, Protect the Forest Sweden
lina.burnelius@skyddaskogen.se, +46734404793
Martin Pigeon, Fern, Belgium, +32 484 671 909
Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, UK
biofuelwatch@gmail.com, +44-1316232600
Fenna Swart, Comite Schone Lucht, NL
fenna@comiteschonelucht.nl, + 31 (0)6 415 14 330
Jana Ballenthien, ROBIN WOOD, GER
wald@robinwood.de, +49 (0) 4038089211