Bioenergy and Biorefinery – Sustainability
- Positive global energy demand trends provide for ample industry growth;
- Rapid urbanization across the developing countries should drive increase in demand at rates superior to GDP;
- Renewable Energy and Bio-Products are expected to become increasingly more relevant in the global economy, creating real and sustainable business opportunities:
- Environmental concerns regarding carbon emissions, combined with high and volatile oil prices have heightened the importance of a diversified energy and products mix;
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. Fresh Water; Food; Ecology and Biodiversity; Marine life and Fisheries;
- UNFCCC (United Nations Fremework Convention on Climate Change Dec./2015): Recognizing that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet:
- Emphasizing with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels;
- Recognizing the urgent need to enhance the provision of finance, technology and capacity-building support by developed country Parties, in a predictable manner, to enable enhanced pre-2020 action by developing country Parties;
- Emphasizing the enduring benefits of ambitious and early action, including major reductions in the cost of future mitigation and adaptation efforts;
- Acknowledging the need to promote universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries, in particular in Africa, through the enhanced deployment of renewable energy;
- Agreeing to uphold and promote regional and international cooperation in order to mobilize stronger and more ambitious climate action by all Parties and non-Party stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector, financial institutions, cities and other subnational authorities, local communities and indigenous peoples;
- Addressing integrated solutions for these global concerns creates real and sustainable business opportunities;
- Biomass based Bioenergy and Bio-products (Biorefinery) still accounts for a small portion of Renewables, but poses advantages that may foster its use;
- Processing technologies for Bioenergy and Biorefinery (Downstream) are available. The major barrier for the economic feasibility deployment of these technologies is a viable and sustainable biomass feedstock source (Upstream)