World Biogas Association celebrates first birthday at COP23
The World Biogas Association (WBA) is celebrating its first year of achievements at the UN COP23 Climate Change Conference in Bonn as global leaders come together to review progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The WBA was founded a year ago (6 November, 2016) at COP22 in Marrakech with the aim of demonstrating the huge contribution that biogas can make to reducing emissions and supporting policymakers to create an environment that will encourage the development of biogas globally.
Biogas, produced through reprocessing organic wastes and purpose-grown energy crops in anaerobic digestion plants, can be used to produce renewable heat and power, clean transport fuel, and nutrient-rich biofertiliser, and has the potential to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20%.
In its first year, the WBA has published: a report on the contribution of biogas to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); three factsheets on how biogas can improve urban air quality, mitigate climate change, and meet the UN SDGs; and five reports on biogas markets in the US, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, and Poland respectively.
The WBA is now working closely with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group on a report into increasing the uptake of separate food waste collections around the world and helping cities understand how biogas technologies can help them resolve issues around food waste.
WBA President David Newman is speaking at an event at COP23 this Thursday (9 November, 2017) titled ‘Solving the nexus between waste, energy and agriculture – biogas technologies as a global solution’, which will examine how biogas can help to meet international climate goals and the UN SDGs.
Celebrating WBA’s achievements from its first year, Newman said: “It’s incredible to think that a whole year has already passed since we established the WBA at COP22 in Marrakech to be the voice for biogas around the world. We already have over 50 members from five different continents, and we’re growing all the time as those working in biogas across the planet look to the WBA to represent them at the highest political levels.
“I’m delighted to be speaking here at COP23 to share the many benefits of biogas with politicians, policymakers, industry, and academics from all over the world. This crucial summit is the perfect precursor to our report with C40 on how cities can use biogas to resolve issues around food waste collection and treatment.
“Biogas has enormous potential to provide solutions for waste management, renewable energy, sustainable farming, and food security in every country of the world, and the WBA is looking forward to celebrating even more achievements in our second year as we spread this message to policymakers and politicians far and wide.”
