But the state government has accused them of "scaremongering" and of "constantly looking for negatives".

Current Greens leader Cassy O'Connor was joined in Hobart on Wednesday by two of her predecessors in the role: Peg Putt and Christine Milne. The trio called on Mr Barnett to rule out the prospect of the government approving biomass burning and forest furnaces as part of its bid to achieve its 200 per cent renewable energy target.

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"The government's renewable energy target bill ... allows for the Minister for Energy to determine what is renewable energy outside solar, wind and water-generated power," Ms O'Connor said. "We are very concerned that this is a stalking horse for forest furnaces."

The Greens intend to move an amendment to the bill which would prevent the burning of biomass product from contributing towards the renewable energy target.

Ms Putt, who heads up the Environmental Paper Network's forest biomass energy working group, said forest furnaces had become increasingly prominent in Europe and were "claimed to be some sort of response to climate change" but were, in fact, the opposite.

Formerly the leader of the Greens at both a state and federal level, Ms Milne is now a director of the Bob Brown Foundation. She said Mr Barnett needed to "immediately" state whether he intended to declare biomass burning of Tasmania's native forests "as renewable energy for the purposes of meeting the target"

A government spokesperson said.the target was an initiative the Greens "should support".

"While we support bio-energy and the job-creating opportunities it represents, we do not have any plans to include our sustainable native forest management systems as part of the [target]," they said.

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