Open letter to President Klaus IOHANNIS, Ombudsperson Renate WEBER and Minister Costel ALEXE

Data on deforested areas and CO2 emissions from biomass burning reported to the United Nations

Open letter to:
The Ombudsperson
Bucharest, George Vraca Street No. 8, Sector 1
Email: petitii@avp.ro

Presidential Administration
Cotroceni Palace, Geniului Boulevard No. 1-3, Sector 6, 060116 – Bucharest,
Email: procetatean@presidency.ro

Ministry of the Environment
Libertății Boulevard No. 12, Sector 5, Bucharest
Email: petitii@mmediu.ro

Re: Data on deforested areas and CO2 emissions from biomass burning reported to the United Nations

Dear President Klaus IOHANNIS,
Dear Ms Renate WEBER, Ombudsperson,
Dear Minister Costel ALEXE,

Bucharest, 5 May 2020 – Information in the United Nations Climate Change report on greenhouse gas emissions, published in April 2020, shows that 85,930 hectares of forest were deforested in Romania in 2018. This will soon cost us extremely dearly because our country will show colossal emissions from forestry instead of CO2 storage, as was believed until recently.

Furthermore, the same report shows that Romania’s default emission factors for biomass burning were comparable to those of Germany and France. These high emission factors indicate the inefficiency of energy-producing installations. The figure is 14,182,610 tonnes of CO2 from biomass burning, meaning that more than 14 million tonnes of biomass were burned in Romania in one year. The data are consistent and plausible when considering the latest data provided by the Competition Council, based on information supplied by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) for 2017. According to this source, Romania consumed 23,004,000 m³ of firewood, including biomass (that is, 14,953,000 tonnes), in that year, of which 18,698,360 m³ (that is, 12,466,000 thousand tonnes) was for the population alone. According to the same source, total national timber production for that year was estimated at 18,316,000 m³, of which firewood extracted from the national forest estate was estimated at approximately 5,163,000 m³.

In other words, more wood was burned than the entire legal national production, without even counting the wood needed for industry and other uses, approximately another 20 million m³. The very large quantity of wood intended as firewood, its burning in installations with very low energy efficiency, without pollution-reduction filters and used mainly by the population of our country, has a series of negative ecological, economic and social consequences:

• It runs counter to measures to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of wood in durable goods.
• A source of forest degradation through illegal logging driven by demand for firewood exceeding the firewood harvest marketed by forest-estate managers and owners, namely small-sized, low-quality wood. This has direct consequences for all ecosystem services provided by the forest.
• A source of environmental pollution because of the low efficiency with which the stoves widely used by the population convert firewood into heat, and the pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, with consequences including for public health.
• It affects the quantity of wood put to higher-value use by the wood industry (high-added-value products with a long service life).

The data worry us, and it is unclear whether the data Romania reported to the United Nations are wrong or whether they might represent a moment of honesty, an acknowledgement of a truth far more serious than was known until now. These data reveal a double standard in domestic and international discourse which, I repeat, will soon cost us extremely dearly because our country will show colossal emissions from forestry.

In this context, we ask you to communicate promptly your official position on the real data and the measures taken. Thank you in advance for your responsiveness.

Yours respectfully,
Gabriel PĂUN, President of Agent Green