Thursday, May 10, 2007

Greenpeace: Biofuels: green dream or climate change nightmare?

Source:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/biofuels-green-dream-or-climate-change-nightmare-20070509

Posted by jamie on 9 May 2007.

Tell the government to choose the right biofuel or the orang-utan gets it

As you may have already seen, along with WWF, the RSPB, Friends of the
Earth and enoughsenough.org, we've placed an advert in several of
today's papers warning the government about the environmental risks of
biofuels as an alternative to petrol and diesel. Hang on, I imagine some
of you are saying right now, aren't they supposed to be clean and green
with the power to save us from the tyranny of fossil fuels? Well, yes...
and no.

Biofuels such as ethanol (a petrol replacement that Brazil is doing so
much to champion) and biodiesel can indeed have advantages over more
traditional fuel sources. Made from processed agricultural crops such as
sugar cane and oil palm, burning biofuels only releases the carbon
dioxide those plants absorbed during their lifecycle, not massive
quantities of compressed, fossilised carbon that has been locked out of
the carbon cycle for millions of years. So naturally, they could form
part of the solution to climate change, at least if it doesn't take a
huge amount of energy to actually make them which is sometimes the case.
The battle between cars and people

As a result, the government has grabbed onto biofuels like a drowning
sailor and in the proposed Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) is
insisting that all fuel companies increase the amount of biofuels they
supply. Sounds like a great idea, until you look at how they're
produced. As George Monbiot has been pointing out for several years (see
here, here and, more recently, here), if their production isn't properly
monitored and controlled, it could spell disaster for rainforests, our
own food and water supplies and even climate change.

I know it's stating the bloody obvious but these crops need to be grown
somewhere. There's a finite amount of arable land on the planet and
most, if not all, of that is already being used to feed the 6 billion
plus population. Monbiot points out that if we rely on crops for our
fuel supplies, it will "set up a competition for food between cars and
people" and that crop prices are already rising as a result. As food
becomes more and more expensive, you can bet it won't be those sitting
behind the wheel of a 4x4 going hungry.

With prices for biofuel crops rising ever higher as demand increases,
the temptation to open up new areas of arable land is just too great.
Illegal timber isn't the only reason the rainforests of south-east Asia
are being torn down, and in Indonesia vast areas that were once virgin
forest are being replanted with palms, the oil from which goes into a
multitude of supermarket products and, increasingly, biofuels. With
species such as orang-utans already highly endangered, the expansion of
oil palm plantations into their remaining habitat could be the final straw.
Deforestation = climate change

The link between deforestation and accelerated climate change is
well-established, not least in the Stern Review which said that 18 per
cent of emissions are as a result of forest destruction. Another fact in
our own press release that caught my eye is that biodiesel from soya
grown on deforested land would take 200 years before it could be
considered 'carbon neutral'.

But to even attempt to meet the world's current fuel demands, colossal
tracts of land would need to be turned over to biofuel production so the
irony is that instead of reducing emissions, this supposedly 'green'
alternative could actually be increasing them by an order of magnitude.

So what's the answer? Do we now campaign for an immediate ban on all
biofuels? No, because as I mentioned above they can offer part of the
solution. However, the government's RTFO needs to ensure that biofuels
do actually reduce climate change emissions and that forests and other
valuable habitats aren't bulldozed to grow them. But even more
importantly, we need to be using less fuel in the first place by making
our vehicles more efficient and, wherever possible, getting out of our
cars and onto buses, trains, bicycles or Shanks's pony.

So that's something we can all do right there: if you have a car, it
should be the most efficient model available. You could also use it
less, and start cycling or walking more. If you've done all of that,
there's still something you can do: the government is asking for
people's views about biofuels so we all have a chance to influence what
goes into the RTFO.

Send a email to the transport minister, Stephen Ladyman, telling him
that we need for rigorous controls on biofuels. Otherwise the green
dream really will become a nightmare.


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