Sustainability of bioenergy in finland and globally – fact check

The sustainability of bioenergy has attracted recently a lot of debate and there has been critical arguments for and against the use of bioenergy. This presentation examines six international publications dealing with the use of bioenergy and collects systematically the allegations of bioenergy, as well as arguments for defending and restricting bioenergy use in the publications. Some of the most controversial arguments are analyzed more thoroughly and they are subjected to fact checking by comparing arguments with sources in scientific literature. At the same time, the preconditions, restrictions, and assumptions that can be used to modify the claims to favor desired arguments are identified. The study finds that there are several problems that can be criticized towards the arguments. Arguments can be justified, among others, by looking at the situation over different time periods or by emphasizing the maximization of short-term or long-term climate benefits. Different values can be selected from initial data, whereupon their own argument can be confirmed.