17 years together for sustainable development: Global Bioenergy Partnership renews commitment for coordinated action towards sustainable bioenergy
Representatives from government, research bodies and private sector gathered from 9th to 11th May to mark GBEP 17th Anniversary and agree on future steps.
The GBEP annual meetings, held at FAO headquarters and online, represented a unique opportunity for the more than 85 GBEP partners and observers to meet, share information and discuss possible ways forward.
Three intense days of presentations, passionate debates and ambitious visions, with a common goal: promote sustainable bioenergy across the globe, with a particular focus on developing economies.
“If we don’t measure, we don’t manage”.
The first day was dedicated to exploring various carbon accounting methodologies for wood energy and how they are applied in practice and policies. Organized in collaboration with IEA Bioenergy and FAO support, the workshop included in its panel FAO experts and academics and aimed to contribute to a common vision on carbon accounting for wood energy and provide a platform for discussion on future directions in this area.
Participants learnt about forestry statistics, and several approaches and models to measure woody biomass use for energy and its impact on the climate, as well as current policies and case studies related to the private sector.
The event highlighted how very few methodologies on carbon accounting focus on wood energy, and both harmonized methodologies and better data are needed for better management of wood energy, pushing GBEP members to agree on a common effort to identify and fill data gaps, and to develop a common vision to guide policymakers and operators through carbon accounting on specific wood energy aspects.
A renewed mandate for bioenergy and bioeconomy
On the 10th and 11th, partners and members participate in back-to-back meetings to cover GBEP’s different thematic areas, with a special focus on bioeconomy and the implementation of GBEP indicators. The partnership is committed to raising its profile on the world stage through better outreach to different audiences, from general public to academia to high-level international fora. The meetings resulted in a commitment to stronger coordination to optimise resources while maintaining high standards, to align GBEP’s collective work to its claim: working together for sustainable development.
Bioenergy is crucial for future development, so is GBEP
During the Steering Committee, several partners reiterated, time and again, how GBEP work is still needed, and how the current global situation make bioenergy and GBEP even more critical for global sustainable development.
Ms. Laís De Souza Garcia (Brazil) highlighted the pivotal role of bioenergy for sustainable development and to achieve Net Zero by 2050, and how GBEP is one of the key actor in the bioenergy field.
FAO OCB Director, Kaveh Zahedi stressed again how:
"As countries invest more in bioenergy and bioeconomy, we need to ensure that bioenergy policies are supporting sustainable growth and climate change mitigation. The GBEP sustainability indicators, as the most widely accepted set of indicators for the measurement of the sustainability of bioenergy, are an integral tool for this process.”
Mr Zahedi also thanked the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security for its ongoing financial support to GBEP work.
The event was also a chance to officially welcome three new GBEP Observers: Nigeria, Biofuture Platform and World Biogas Association, and marked the handover of the GBEP chairmanship for the next biennium: after two years, Ms. Laís De Souza Garcia (Brazil), on behalf of Amb. Alexandre Ghisleni (GBEP Co-Chair, Brazil), and Ms. Emily Marthaler (GBEP Co-Chair, USA) handed over the GBEP chairmanship to Amb. Carlos Cherniak (Argentina) and Ms. Roberta Ronzitti (Italy).
At the reception for the 17th anniversary of GBEP foundation, hosted by the 4th Reggimento dei Carabinieri a Cavallo. Gen. Com. Francesco Maria Chiaravalloti welcomed the guests and presented the show offered by the Carabinieri, an exhibition of mounted cavalry for FAO GBEP guests, with impressively coordinated choreographies on the notes of pop hits.
