The Time's Come to Stop the Blame Game!

Profit, pressure from industry and farm subsidies show that there is more behind this enthusiasm for the crops than a desire to stop climate change, according to the Guardian.

If politicians want to reduce emissions and stop global warming, biofuels are not the solution. Recent research suggests that biofuels may increase greenhouse gas emissions rather than reduce them. And by pushing up demand for agricultural land, they're causing farming to expand into other areas that store carbon – such as wetlands and forests – releasing way more carbon than is saved through biofuels.

Nor will biofuels offer the holy grail of fuel security and stop us from having to curb our insatiable demand for oil or oil alternatives. Oxfam estimates that if the entire corn harvest of the USA were diverted to ethanol, it would only be able to replace about one gallon in every six sold in the USA. And if the entire world supply of oilseed were converted to biodiesel, this would only be able to replace, at most, 10% of global diesel consumption.

This is why this story story is so important! Seventy five percent is one of the highest estimates of direct impact of biofuels on food prices. But it adds to a cumulatively compelling - and surely ultimately irrefutable - body of evidence that shows that biofuels production is threatening to push millions more people into poverty and hunger and undermine already inadequate progress towards the millennium development goals.

Not all biofuels are all bad (Brazilian ethanol, for example, does have lower emissions). But there is so much evidence about the range of potentially negative impacts that setting mandatory targets for their production and use seems unconscionable. And yet, that's what governments, including the UK, have done or are on the brink of doing, thereby sending a signal to the markets and the private sector that demand is here to stay, and keeping prices high.

The EU wants 10% of energy needs to be met by renewables by 2020. Unlike in the UK, this target has not yet been made legislation. In fact the European parliament's environment committee will vote on it on Monday. Which makes recent efforts to suppress information on biofuels even more scandalous. The MEPs voting next week expected to have a UK-commissioned review on the impact of biofuels to guide their decisions. But the release of the Gallagher report has been repeatedly delayed and its findings expected to be critical of targets look set to come too late help MEPs decide which way to vote. We have also heard that critical wordings on food security have been excised from the text on which MEPs are meant to be voting.

Taken together this begins to look a lot like a conspiracy. A neat way of making big bucks for companies and agribusiness, at the expense of consumers, taxpayers and poor people in developing countries. The question is how much more evidence needs to emerge before politicians realise that the path they are taking is immoral and unjustifiable?

View the Guardian story by clicking here.

Further Reading

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You can view the Oxfam International report by clicking here.

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