Despite extreme weather conditions that came with the heat wave from Africa with the temperatures climbing as high as 40°C in Serbia in the past two weeks, causing wildfires and threatening human health, short rotation biomass energy plantations in RB Kolubara, Serbian coal mining and smelting complex, are surviving. Plants can’t escape the extreme heat but they seem to have some coping mechanisms.
With the Paris Agreement, the international community committed to keep the global temperature rise well below 2°C and endeavour to limit it to 1.5°C (UNFCCC, 2015). Bioenergy is expected to play a critical role in emissions mitigation, as it offers options for electricity, heat and transport fuels with low or even net-negative greenhouse gas (GHG).