PROTESTERS descended on Westminster today to demand that the government stop using taxpayers’ money to bankroll the destruction of forests.
More than 100 environmental activists from groups including Axe Drax, Fossil Free London and Greenpeace gathered outside the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, calling for an end to the vast subsidies granted to the Drax biomass power plant.
The North Yorkshire plant is Britain’s largest carbon emitter, yet receives almost £1.5 million a day for burning biomass wood chips, a fuel source that Drax claims is “carbon neutral.”
As part of the action, a choir celebrated Christmas trees in song and handed out origami trees to civil servants entering the building.
Four people dressed as tree-like creatures representing the millions of trees burned by Drax presented the department with a Greenpeace petition, bearing the signatures of over 120,000 people, calling for an end to the subsidies.
The power plant burned six million tonnes of wood pellets last year, equivalent to about half a billion Christmas trees.
In February, a BBC Panorama investigation revealed that Drax had continued to burn wood from rare primary forests in Canada, after the programme first made the discovery two years ago.
The plant was then forced to pay £25 million to Ofgem for failing to provide adequate data on the type of wood it sources.
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