BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.

BRUSSELS — The EU is seeking reassurances from Ukraine over future financial support to the country after a far-reaching corruption probe revealed a $100 million kickback scheme tied to its energy sector. Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies revealed this week that some of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s close associates were allegedly involved in the plot, prompting the Ukrainian president to issue sanctions against his former business partner and dismiss several senior ministers. That’s divided Kyiv’s European partners. For many, the revelations are a positive sign of the continued independence of Ukraine’s anti-graft watchdogs. Some, however, want concrete commitments from the country that show it is serious about preventing similar incidents in the future. “The endemic corruption” revealed in the probe is “revolting,” said one EU official, who, like others for this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive matter, and “won’t help” the country’s reputation with international partners. “It will mean [the European] Commission will surely have to reassess how it spends” funds on Kyiv’s energy sector, the official argued, adding that in the future, “Ukraine will have to give more attention and transparency in how it spends cash.” “We expect Ukraine to press ahead with anti-corruption measures and reforms in its own country,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday, after calling Zelenskyy.  The president “needs to comfort everyone,” added an EU government official, “most likely with a plan on how to fix corruption.” The scandal comes at a delicate time for Ukraine. The country is facing a €41 billion budget crunch next year, while EU countries are currently deadlocked over unblocking a €140 billion reparations loan for Kyiv from frozen Russian assets. Ukraine’s foreign and energy ministries didn’t respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. But on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said “there must be maximum integrity in the energy sector in absolutely all processes,” adding: “I support … every investigation carried out by law enforcement and anti-corruption officials.” HIGH WIRE ACT So far, the scandal — the worst to hit Zelenskyy since he took office in 2019 — is not prompting allies to threaten to cut aid to Ukraine. On Thursday, the EU confirmed it would earmark €6 billion in new aid for Ukraine. Earlier this week, Estonia officially approved an additional €150,000 for Kyiv’s energy sector, while Germany is reportedly considering a €3 billion top-up for the country next year. As they met at the G7 on Wednesday and flocked to Warsaw for the EU-Ukraine Investment Conference on Thursday, allies sought to put on a united front. In recent months, Moscow has ramped up its bombing campaign on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, pummelling its gas production facilities and coal power plants. | Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images “It is painful to see how corruption affects the energy sector, especially as winter approaches and Russia continues its brutal attacks on energy infrastructure,” said Lithuanian Energy Minister Žygimantas Vaičiūnas. But we “stand firmly with the people of Ukraine — our support will not stop,” he told POLITICO. Ending aid for Kyiv’s battered energy sector would have a “terrible” impact ahead of this winter, said Aura Sabadus, a senior energy analyst specializing in eastern Europe at the ICIS energy consultancy. In recent months, Moscow has ramped up its bombing campaign on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, pummelling its gas production facilities and coal power plants. As a result, the country has secured €500 million in aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to buy up emergency gas imports. Behind closed doors, Ukraine’s EU backers are also wary that being too vocal could feed into its opponents’ narratives aimed at discrediting Kyiv and scuppering its efforts to join the bloc. “A wartime mafia network with countless ties to President Zelenskyy has been exposed,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a consistent critic of Ukraine, claimed on social media on Thursday. “This is the chaos into which the Brusselian elite want to pour European taxpayers’ money.” “By [highlighting] corruption scandals, they only give ammo to those like Hungary who are saying it is a corrupt nation,” said one EU diplomat. “Those who are opposed to Ukraine … will milk this for all it’s worth,” added a second diplomat. A former senior Ukrainian official said he expected Brussels to double down on making some funding conditional on reforms. “But the overall taboo on criticizing Ukraine in public will hold,” he said. CLEANING UP Ukraine’s defenders say the probe is limited to one company, arguing international backers shouldn’t punish the energy sector as a result. But some allies still want to see more reforms. Up until now, the investigation has largely focused on Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, accusing seven officials of manipulating contracts to extract kickbacks worth 10-15 percent of contract values. “There will be a cleansing and reset of Energoatom’s management,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday. In total, the Commission has granted “more than €3 billion” in energy-related aid to Kyiv since 2022, a spokesperson for the EU executive said. Around one tenth of that has been channeled through the Energy Community, an international organization that supplies Ukraine with in-kind energy equipment like transformers based on requests from Kyiv. In total, it has mobilized €1.5 billion in donations from Ukraine’s western partners. Energy Community Director Artur Lorkowski called the scandal “frustrating.” But at the Vienna-based organization, the corruption “risk is mitigated,” he said, since it retains “full control” over the coordination, purchase and post-arrival monitoring of the equipment — with procurement handled by an independent agency in the U.K. The EBRD, meanwhile, has allocated €3.1 billion in aid to Ukraine’s energy sector, a bank spokesperson said, around a third of its total support since 2022. Its “very robust procurement requirements,” including open tenders and direct payments to contractors, they said, gives the bank a “very high degree of comfort” for future donations. Still, others argue there is still a long way to go in eliminating corruption in the sector. Going forward, Ukraine should make its energy sector more transparent and give reassurances to its European partners that their money will be well spent, two EU diplomats and two European government officials said. “This is also a chance to cleanse and rebuild stronger,” said Vaičiūnas, the minister. Andrii Zhupanyn, an MP from Zelenskyy’s ruling Servant of the People party who sits on the parliament’s energy committee, agreed. Kyiv should start by improving the corporate governance of state-owned energy firms and strengthening their supervisory boards, he said, adding: “More transparency is necessary for sure.” Tim Ross, Jamie Dettmer and Veronika Mekoverova contributed to this report.

LONDON — Donald Trump’s war against the media has gone international.  Britain’s public service broadcaster has until 10 p.m. U.K. time on Friday to retract a 2024 documentary that he claims did him “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” — or potentially face a $1 billion lawsuit (nearly £760 million). It’s the U.S. president’s first notable battle with a non-American media organization. The escalation from Trump comes as the BBC is already grappling with the double resignations this past weekend of two top executives, Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness, amid the growing furor sparked by the release last week of an internal ombudsman’s report criticizing the Trump program as well as the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war. Trump told Fox News he believes he has “an obligation” to sue the corporation because “they defrauded the public” and “butchered” a speech he gave. POLITICO walks you through the possible road ahead — and the potential pitfalls on both sides of the Atlantic.  WHY IS TRUMP THREATENING TO SUE?  The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election.  The program included footage from Trump’s speech ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, which was selectively edited to suggest, incorrectly, that he told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”   But those lines were spoken almost an hour apart, and the documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”  “I really struggle to understand how we got to this place,” former BBC legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman told POLITICO. “The first lesson almost you’re taught as a broadcast journalist is that you do not join two bits of footage together from different times in a way that will make the audience think that it is one piece of footage.” The U.S. president’s legal team claimed the edit on the footage was “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory” and caused him “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”  BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. Trump’s lawyers said in their letter that they want a retraction, an apology and appropriate financial compensation — though their client’s subsequent comments suggest that may not satisfy him at this point. DO TRUMP’S CLAIMS STAND A CHANCE?  Trump’s lawyers indicated in their letter that he plans to sue in Florida, his home state, which has a two-year statute of limitations for defamation rather than the U.K.’s one-year limit — which has already passed.  The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images To even gain a hearing, the U.S. president would first need to prove the documentary was available there. The broadcaster confirmed the Panorama episode was not shown on the global feed of the BBC News Channel, while programs on iPlayer, the BBC’s catchup service, were only available in the U.K.  The Trump team’s letter to the BBC, however, claimed the clip was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums” reaching tens of millions of people worldwide — a key contention that would need to be considered by any judge deciding whether the case could be brought.  U.S. libel laws are tougher for claimants given that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. In U.S. courts, public figures claiming to have been defamed also have to show the accuser acted with “actual malice.”  The legal meaning doesn’t require animosity or dislike, but instead an intent to spread false information or some action in reckless disregard of the truth — a high burden of proof for Trump’s lawyers.  American libel standards tend to favor publishers more than those in Britain, so much so that in recent decades public figures angry about U.S. news reports have often opted to file suit in the U.K. That trend even prompted a 2010 U.S. law aimed at reining in so-called libel tourism. Yet Trump’s legal team is signaling it will argue that since the full video of Trump’s 2021 speech was widely available to the BBC, the editing itself amounted to reckless disregard and, therefore, actual malice.  BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images “The BBC’s reckless disregard for the truth underscores the actual malice behind the decision to publish the wrongful content, given the plain falsity of the statements,” his lawyers wrote.  However, a court battle wouldn’t be without risks for Trump. Prateek Swaika, a U.K.-based partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, said pursuing litigation “could force detailed examination and disclosure in connection” with Trump’s Jan. 6 statements —  potentially creating “more reputational damage than the original edit.”  COULD THE BBC SETTLE?  Trump has a long history of threatening legal action, especially against the press, but has lately had success in reaching out-of-court agreements with media outlets — including, most notably, the U.S. broadcasters ABC and CBS.  Trump’s latest claim is the flipside of his $20 billion suit against CBS’s “60 Minutes” over an interview with then-Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deceptively edited to make Harris look good and therefore amounted to election interference.  CBS settled for $16 million in July, paying into a fund for Trump’s presidential library or charitable causes, though the network admitted no wrongdoing. The settlement came as CBS’ parent company, Paramount, was pursuing a corporate merger that the Trump administration had the power to block — and after Trump publicly said he thought CBS should lose its broadcast license, which is also granted by the federal government. The president doesn’t hold that same sway over the BBC, though the organization does have some U.S.-based commercial operations. Some news organizations have also opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Some news organizations have opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images “Litigation is always a commercial decision and it’s a reputational decision,” said Coleman, suggesting settlement talks may look appealing compared to fighting a case that could “hang over the heads of the BBC for many, many years, like a dark cloud.”  COULD THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT STEP IN?  Despite the BBC’s standing as a state broadcaster, the Labour government has so far taken a hands-off approach, perhaps unsurprisingly given Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ongoing efforts to woo Trump on trade. No. 10 said on Tuesday that the lawsuit threat was a matter for the BBC, though Starmer subsequently reiterated his support for it generally. “I believe in a strong and independent BBC,” Starmer said at prime minister’s questions Wednesday. “Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist … I’m not one of them.” Perhaps eager to stay in Trump’s good books, the PM’s ministers have also avoided attacking the president and instead walked a diplomatic tightrope by praising the BBC in more general terms. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Tuesday reiterated the government’s vision of the BBC as a tool of soft power. The BBC documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” | Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images “At a time when the line between fact and opinion, and between news and polemic, is being dangerously blurred, the BBC stands apart,” Nandy told MPs Tuesday. “It is a light on the hill for people here and across the world.”  WHO WOULD FUND ANY PAYOUT?  The BBC is funded by the country’s license fee, which requires any household that has a TV or uses BBC iPlayer to pay £174.50 a year (some people are exempt from paying). In the year ending March 2025, this accounted for £3.8 billion of the corporation’s overall £5.9 billion in income. The remaining £2 billion came from activities including commercial ventures. Any licence fee revenue that funded a settlement with Trump would likely go down very poorly as a political matter, given looming tax increases in the U.K. as well as the U.S. president’s significant unpopularity with British voters. The corporation lost a €100,000 (£88,000) libel case earlier this year against former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams after a Dublin jury found the broadcaster falsely connected him to a 2006 Irish Republican Army killing, showing there is a precedent for politicians winning cases.  Responding to a question as to whether license fee payers would fund any legal sum, Starmer said Wednesday: “Where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order and the BBC must uphold the highest standards, be accountable and correct errors quickly.” Singer Cliff Richard also received £210,000 in damages and around £2 million in legal costs from the BBC in 2019 over a privacy case, though those payments were within the scope of its legal insurance. MIGHT AN ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT WORK?  The BBC has paid damages to a foreign head of state before, including compensating then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2019 for an incorrect report. But Trump technically faces rules on accepting foreign payments. There’s every chance that a settlement to Trump could pass through another vehicle, as the with the CBS agreement. ABC’s settlement involved $15 million to a Trump-related foundation alongside $1 million for his legal fees.  Trump’s former attorney Alan Dershowitz suggested just that on Tuesday, saying if the corporation made a “substantial” contribution to a charity “that’s relevant to the president might put this thing behind them.” 

The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month. The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway. In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done. Congressional Democrats and anti-hunger groups have urged the Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits flowing into November, some even arguing that the federal government is legally required to tap other funds to pay for the program. But senior officials have told POLITICO that using those other funds wouldn’t leave money for future emergencies and other major food aid programs. Administration officials expect Democratic governors and anti-hunger groups to sue over the decision not to tap the contingency fund for SNAP, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private views. The White House is blaming Democrats for the lapse in funding due to their repeated votes against a House-passed stopgap funding bill. The Trump administration stepped in to shore up funding for key farm programs this week after also identifying Pentagon funds to pay active-duty troops earlier in the month. USDA said in the memo, which was first reported by Axios, that it cannot tap the contingency fund because it is reserved for emergencies such as natural disasters. The department also argues that using money from other nutrition programs would hurt other beneficiaries, such as mothers and babies as well as schoolchildren who are eligible for free lunches. “This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown,” USDA wrote in the memo. The top Democrats on the House Agriculture and Appropriations committees — Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, respectively — lambasted the determination Friday, saying “Congress already provided billions of dollars to fund SNAP in November.” “It is the Trump administration that is taking food assistance away from 42 million Americans next month — including hungry seniors, veterans, and families with children,” they said in a statement. “This is perhaps the most cruel and unlawful offense the Trump administration has perpetrated yet — freezing funding already enacted into law to feed hungry Americans while he shovels tens of billions of dollars out the door to Argentina and into his ballroom.” Congress could pass a standalone bill to fund SNAP for November, but that would have to get through the Senate early next week and the House would likely need to return to approve it. Johnson said this week if the Senate passes a standalone SNAP patch, the House would “address” it. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he would lean toward using the emergency funds to help keep some food benefits flowing. “I think the President and GOP should do what we can to alleviate harm done by the Democrats,” he said in a text message. Bacon also said he would support having the House return to approve a standalone bill should the Senate pass one next week: “I figure the Speaker would want to.” Some states, including Virginia and Hawaii, have started to tap their own emergency funds to offer some food benefits in the absence of SNAP. But it’s not clear how long that aid can last given states’ limited budgets and typical reliance on federal help to pay for anti-hunger programs. USDA, furthermore, said states cannot expect to be reimbursed if they cover the cost of keeping benefits flowing.

The little Basque village of Zubieta has an unlikely talent for a place its size: This community of 300 souls can make the trash of half a million people vanish into thin air. Each year, as much as 200,000 metric tons of waste from across northwestern Spain is trucked to the Gipuzkoa treatment plant on the edge of the village. There it is sorted and fed into a giant incinerator, generating enough electricity to power 45,000 homes. The Gipuzkoa plant was meant to be an eco-friendly alternative to landfill, but it’s backfiring. Locals have accused the plant’s owners and the regional government of violating European Union environmental laws and releasing hazardous levels of pollution into the surrounding water, air and soil. It’s even spurred a criminal court case. “The court has to decide if the environmental permit [granted by the local government] is in accordance with [the] EU directive on pollution,” says Joseba Belaustegi Cuesta, a member of the grassroots GuraSOS movement that is campaigning against the incinerator. Gipuzkoa is not a one-off. Across Europe, hundreds of waste-to-energy facilities have mushroomed over the years, built on the promise that burning trash to generate electricity is better for the environment than burying it in a landfill. But studies increasingly find that the pollution generated by these facilities also harms the environment and people’s health. The EU, meanwhile, has massively reduced funding for such projects, while municipalities are still repaying the debt they accrued to fund them. At best, critics say, waste-to-energy plants risk becoming unpopular relics of a misguided waste policy. At worst the existing debt-funded plants could become “stranded assets” that struggle to find enough trash to burn to ensure they remain commercially viable. Gipuzkoa itself was financed with €80 million worth of bonds whose repayment date is 2047. The plant, in other words, needs to keep running for another two decades — regardless of the environmental cost. Belaustegi Cuesta complains that the incinerator now imports “residues that [are] not even household residues” to feed itself. French asset manager Meridiam, the biggest shareholder in the Gipuzkoa plant, did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. EUROPE’S WASTE PROBLEM Some 500 waste-to-energy plants operate on EU soil today and burn around a quarter of Europe’s everyday trash, according to waste-to-energy lobby CEWEP.   Plant operators and their investors say these furnaces are essential if Europe wants to meet its goal of sending less than 10 percent of household waste to landfills by 2035. In 2022 Europeans generated roughly 190 million metric tons of household waste, according to data from Brussels statistical office Eurostat. | Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images In 2022 Europeans generated roughly 190 million metric tons of household waste, according to data from Eurostat, Brussels’ statistical office. Despite recycling roughly 40 percent — more than any other region — the EU still buries a big chunk of its trash. More than 50 million metric tons of municipal waste were sent to landfills in the EU in 2023, enough to cover central Paris with a 20-meter pile of garbage.  Waste-to-energy is considered a slightly cleaner alternative: About 58 million metric tons were incinerated in 2023, nearly all of which was used to make energy, EU data shows. EU laws on waste require companies to prioritize reuse and recycling over waste incineration and landfilling. “The main objective of a waste-to-energy plant is not to produce energy; its primary purpose is to manage waste that cannot be recycled,” explained Patrick Dorvil, senior economist in the circular economy division of the European Investment Bank. The power generation benefits are often what the waste-to-energy lobby advertises when promoting the technology, however.  “With one week of your household’s residual waste, you have enough heat to warm your home for at least 8 hours,” CEWEP writes in its 2025 brochure. The lobby also claims that about 10 percent of district heating in Europe comes from energy made by burning waste, and that the technology contributes to renewable energy generation and landfill diversion.  POLLUTION CONCERNS But green groups say it’s a mistake to think waste-to-energy is a cleaner source of energy than fossil fuels. Poorly sorted municipal waste often means that a lot of fossil fuel-based plastic gets burnt, releasing planet-warming CO₂ in the process.  “The argument that burning waste is better than landfilling oversimplifies a complex issue. Both practices have serious environmental impacts and neither should be seen as a viable long-term solution,” said Janek Vahk, senior policy officer at Zero Waste Europe. The NGO estimates that each metric ton of municipal waste that is burned releases between 0.7 and 1.7 metric tons of CO₂. Scientists, meanwhile, warn that insufficient research has been conducted on the dangers faced by people living near incinerators. Plant operators insist that technological solutions and proper sorting can keep that pollution under control. But these concerns have not gone unnoticed, and popular backlash against waste incinerators is growing. In Rome, for example, tens of thousands of people signed a petition to stop the mayor from greenlighting a waste incineration project in Santa Palomba. And last March, French senators proposed to ban the construction of new waste incinerators in the country. The pollution concerns have led the EU to reduce its financial support for waste-to-energy plants and to introduce policy obligations meant to steer EU countries toward recycling.  Plant operators insist that technological solutions and proper sorting can keep pollution under control. | Christopher Neundorf/EPA Over the years, Brussels has introduced strict environmental conditions that projects must meet to receive EU funding. This has significantly reduced the amount of public funds allocated to waste incineration compared to larger sums earmarked for greener projects such as recycling plants.  Back in 2020, the technology’s carbon footprint was ultimately what prompted Brussels to exclude waste-to-energy plants from its list of eligible green projects. The list, called the EU taxonomy, tells investors what counts as a sustainable investment.  Meanwhile, local governments are stuck, environmental NGOs argue, with many still paying off the debt they accrued when agreeing to build the sites. “Many of these installation plans would turn out to be obsolete,” says Anelia Stefanova, energy transformation area leader for CEE Bankwatch, since EU countries are expected to meet waste reduction and recycling targets enforced by EU laws. STRANDED ASSETS As countries move toward greener waste management systems, the risk is that these large infrastructure projects could become useless. Many waste-to-energy plants already require more trash than tends to be available in the surrounding area. In Copenhagen, for example, the city’s infamous ski slope incinerator — itself financed through a 30-year loan —  imports tens of thousands of tons of waste from abroad annually to feed its furnaces.   Denmark has an “overcapacity in the incineration sector of up to 700,000” metric tons, according to its climate and energy ministry. The country is already budgeting to cover the costs of unnecessary waste incinerators. In 2020, Denmark introduced a plan to green the waste sector, which included allocating 200 million Danish kroner (€26 million) to municipalities to cover “stranded costs.” Lenders, including the EU’s official lending arm the European Investment Bank, are also acutely aware that the policy landscape has moved away from supporting the technology unconditionally. “Everything financed by the EIB must comply with EU directives. We are not policymakers; we are policy takers,” said the EIB’s Dorvil, adding that there have been plenty of cases where the bank has refused funding for financial or environmental reasons. Still, new waste-to-energy plants are in the works.  “When there are no incineration facilities then there [are] bigger landfills,” insists Hanna Zdanowska, mayor of the Polish city of Łódź. The city will soon have a new waste-to-energy plant planned by French energy company Veolia and paid for with a €97 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.  Zdanowska says the plant will increase the city’s “energy independence, which is also very important right now.” The EU’s Modernisation Fund is one of the last funding programs that still pays for waste-to-energy; it aims to help lower-income EU member countries transition their energy sectors away from fossil fuels. The €19 billion cash pot has poured just shy of €2 billion into waste-to-energy projects since its inception in 2021, all of them in Czechia and Poland. Asked if there’s a risk the new incinerator could become a stranded asset, Zdanowska said she “would love to have such a scenario that we really produce less waste in the future.”   “When the amount of waste goes down in the future and recycling goes up, then probably only a couple of plants will be left in the area and they will not limit themselves to collecting waste only from the city but they will expand their area for the whole region.”

LONDON — Donald Trump’s ambassador to the U.K. on Monday joined mounting criticism of a “death to the IDF” chant which took place at Britain’s Glastonbury music festival over the weekend. Warren Stephens, the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., hit out at the “antisemitic” chant against the Israel Defense Forces. It was kicked off by punk act Bob Vylan during the weekend festival, and broadcast live on the BBC. “The antisemitic chants led by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury were a disgrace,” he said on X Monday. “There should be no place for this hateful incitement or tolerance of antisemitism in the U.K.” The row has already heaped cross-party pressure on the BBC, Britain’s publicly-funded broadcaster. On Sunday night, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the BBC “needs to explain” why the “appalling hate speech” was broadcast. The corporation has since admitted it should have pulled the broadcast. London Mayor Sadiq Khan — who has been sharply critical of Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza — warned Monday that the chants would not help people in Gaza or the West Bank.” “It’s possible to be critical — as I am — of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [the] IDF while recognising Jewish people feel very scared and distinguish between them,” he told LBC Radio. Opposition politicians have already been piling in. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Vylan was “inciting violence and hatred” and even suggested the BBC should be prosecuted for broadcasting the footage. A spokesperson for the BBC said Monday afternoon that the organization would look again at its editorial guidelines so staff knew when output could remain on air. They said in a statement: “The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves. We welcome Glastonbury’s condemnation of the performance.” The broadcaster said its team had been “dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen.”