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Did you know that the Government is currently spending billions from UK energy bills to fund tree burning in UK power stations like Drax in Yorkshire and Lynemouth in Northumberland?
Much of the wood that Drax and Lynemouth burn comes from the logging of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests in the Southern USA, Canada, Estonia and Latvia, with catastrophic impacts on forests, wildlife, communities and the climate.
Burning wood in power stations is a disaster for the climate, with scientists around the world warning that burning wood for energy increases global warming for decades to centuries. Last year alone, Drax emitted over 11 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere from burning trees.
With 2024 predicted to be the hottest year on record and extreme weather worsening around the world, it has never been more important to protect and restore our forests, not allow companies like Drax to burn them in power stations.
Drax received around £1.5m per day in 2023 from UK bill payers to burn trees whilst the company is making record profits. In July this year, Drax gave its shareholders a windfall payment of £300 million whilst receiving £393m in subsidies.
Ministers are now considering consultation proposals from the previous Government to use our energy bills to grant huge new subsidies for tree burning at power stations like Drax and Lynemouth.
If granted, these new subsidies would do nothing to lower our energy bills and they would allow both power stations to keep burning trees at our expense for many years to come, at an estimated cost to UK bill payers of up to £2.5 billion a year.
Instead, such a large sum of money could be used to insulate thousands of draughty British homes and bring down energy bills. This would create new green jobs and help to tackle both the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis.
For the sake of our planet, we need as many people as possible to call on their MPs to help end Drax’s and Lynemouth’s tree burning, pollution of communities’ air, harm to wildlife and climate-wrecking emissions.
Please ask your MP to pledge to support an end to subsidies for burning wood in UK power stations.
