Protecting Our Climate
Learn why wood burning is harming our planet, increasing air pollution, and contributing to biodiversity loss — and how we can change this.
The Environmental Cost of Burning Wood
Burning wood produces more CO2 than burning coal, oil or gas for the same amount of heat. It produces much higher amounts of black carbon (which is the second biggest driver of climate change) than burning other fuels. It significantly contributes to habitat and biodiversity loss and damages ecosystems. Production (from diesel powered machinery used in commercial timber operation) transportation (by large HGVs) and manufacturing of wood fuels (especially if kiln dried wood or wood pellets are being burnt) also causes significant and damaging emissions.
In short, burning wood is not compatible with a net zero future.
Woodburning is
- Not carbon neutral
- Not environmentally friendly
- Releasing more CO2 than burning oil or gas
- Contributing to biodiversity loss
"Think about a wood-burning stove as an enormous exhaust pipe on top of your house, Wood-burning causes around 21% of total PM2.5 air pollution in the UK, and 75% of domestic emissions. Collecting wood from forests is wiping out insects"
Dr. Peter Knapp, air quality researcher and Environmentalist, Imperial College, London (see article here )
Why is woodburning not carbon neutral
Burning wood is not carbon neutral because of the timescale difference between the storage of CO2 and the release of CO2 and the disturbance of soil to plant replacement trees.
For example – a 60 year old tree accumulates CO2 slowly over 60 years. Cutting down and burning this same tree would release this 60 years worth of stored CO2 in a matter of hours releasing 60 years worth of stored CO2 into the atmosphere in one short burst. This video helps explain it.
If the same 60 year old tree had been left standing instead, it would still be capturing lots of CO2. But if this 60 year old tree had fallen down naturally and been left to decay on the forest floor, that 60 years worth of stored CO2 would still be released but it would happen over decades through a variety of processes conducted by a variety of insects and fungi.
Newly planted young trees cannot replace the carbon storage capabilities of older trees in mature forests. It can take decades for new trees to grow and reabsorb the carbon that was emitted by the older trees that were burnt and even then that’s only if those new trees are looked after properly and don’t succumb to predation or disease or wild fires.
48% of carbon is stored in the soil and leaf litter of forests. Disturbing this habitat in order to plant new trees releases that stored carbon back into the atmosphere at a time when we should be reducing our carbon emissions.
If you burn logs on a fire, count the tree rings on your firewood logs. If you’re not replacing the tree that you’re burning with a tree of the same age, then it’s not carbon neutral.
This tree could still be absorbing and storing CO2 instead of releasing it’s stored carbon in your fire and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
Older forests store more carbon than younger forests
Did you know?
Why is wood burning not environmentally friendly
Burning wood produces huge amounts of black carbon and methane, much more than fossil fuels. Although black carbon is a short lived pollutant, it’s effects are significant because it absorbs solar energy and warms the atmosphere. Not only is it a big contributer to global warming, it also harms ecosystems and reduces agricultural productivity. Wood burning produces more black carbon than burning oil and gas.
The new Ecodesign standard of wood burning stoves emit 6 times as much pm2.5 PER HOUR as a Euro 6 HGV. Older stoves emit considerably more.
Log burners manage to emit more pm2.5 pollution than all road traffic in the UK despite only 8% of homes having one.
Did you know?
How does burning wood release more CO2 than burning oil or gas?
Burning wood releases more CO2 than burning coal, oil or gas because you have to burn more of it to produce the same amount of heat or energy
The UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs research found Ecodesign wood-burning stoves produce 450 times more pm2.5 pollution than modern gas boilers. For older stoves, now banned from sale but still very much in use, the emissions are 3,700 times greater than a gas boiler.
450 times more pollution that a gas boiler
Lighting fires in our homes is the single biggest source of harmful small particle air pollution in the UK. Burning wood accounts for a whopping 75% of these emissions
Did you know?
How does woodburning contribute to biodiversity loss
Scotland has lost 23% of it’s tree cover in the past 22 years. According to the latest State of Nature report 2023 woodland bird numbers have reduced in abundance by 15% in just the past five years making them the most rapidly declining group of all UK birds. Wildlife need homes. Trees provide those homes. Every tree that is felled to be burnt was once providing a much needed home for our dwindling bird, mammal and insect populations.
Dead wood in forests is being removed to be burnt. This means an essential habitat for wildlife is being lost. 40% of woodland wildlife is at least partially dependent on dead wood. It is a vital part of the ecosystem and provides a home for our rapidly declining insect populations without whom many of the ecosystems we depend on will break down.
What are other countries doing about the false climate-friendly claims being made about woodburning?
In Denmark, the Consumer Ombudsman have charged that 23 companies had violated the Marketing Practices Act with their deceptive environmental claims about wood burning.
What we say
We are in a climate and nature emergency and we need to be reducing as much of our CO2 emissions as we can. In a world where forests are being cut down at a rate of one football field every two seconds, chopping down trees to burn them is one of the last things we want to be doing especially when there are truly renewable clean forms of energy available to us.