蜜芽传媒

Russia's military aggression against Ukraine and its weaponization of gas supplies have provoked an unprecedented energy crisis across Europe. As the cold draws in, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Poland, Hungary, the UK and Switzerland are among those nations who have warned citizens to expect blackouts and power-outages in the weeks and months ahead.

Martin Pigeon is a Forests and Climate campaigner at the forests and rights NGO 鈥楩ern鈥�. He is also co-author of Fern鈥檚 briefing Europe鈥檚 Dark Winter 鈥� how will people and forests survive the energy crisis? He told Newsday that more and more people are turning to forests for fuel. He said: 鈥淭he reason why people have to burn so much wood to warm their homes is that unfortunately governments in western Europe have not followed鈥�climate scientists and campaigners' advice for the past two decades at least鈥�Europe is spending billions every year to subsidise energy companies to burn wood and that鈥檚 absolutely useless. All that money should be redirected to better use鈥�helping people insulate their house at the very minimum and pay their energy bill if that鈥檚 necessary.鈥�

(Picture: Shows an aerial view of a cut forest near a lake in Europe. Credit: Getty Images.)