Transcript Deforestation for palm oil

Biofuels: An Unfolding Catastrophe
Deepak Rughani, Biofuelwatch. UCL Feb 2010
www.tqnyc.org
sseechange.com/blog/
Climate Change
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC)
1979 to 2007 reduction is around 1.2 million square km of ice
(UK is approx 245,000 sq km)
Peak Oil
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, ASPO
Converging Crises
Damian Carrington New scientist environmental blog
FINANCIAL
CRASH
www.distance-education.org
FALSE vs REAL Solutions
(Symptomatic vs Fundamental)
• Economy
Bailouts, stimulus packages
• Energy security
?, ROCs
• Climate
Climate Bill, Creative GHG accounting!
Underlying assumption; sustaining our consumption patterns is our
prerogative
Infinite growth, Malthus?
Agrofuels: where 4 concerns
intersect
Agrofuel
Impacts
Food Poverty
• Lester Brown
• Food price spikes linked to hunger and civil unrest
2008 wheat and other grains
2009 (recession)
2010 Sugar, 128% above 2009 prices – 29 yr high
• 2007: 860m living in food poverty
2009: Over 1 billion
(Leaked 2008 report from WB indicated that over 70% of driving force
is agrofuels)
RSPO?, Rapeseed / wheat / corn?
Evictions and human rights abuses are no bar to
meeting the EU's definition of 'sustainable biofuels'
Brazil: Eviction on 120 families for
sugar cane ethanol
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/
BiofuelQA/Brazil/brazil.htm
Colombia: Military and paramilitary
repression of Afro-Colombian communities
in the palm oil areas of the Bajo Atrato
Photo: Intercelestial Commission for Justivce
and Peace
Biodiversity Losses
Deforestation for palm oil
Sarawak, Malaysia
Friends of the Earth Europe
Colombia
Klaus Schenck, Salva la Selga
Papua New Guinea
Bugala Island, Uganda
Joseph Fargione, scientist for the Nature Conservancy
“All the biofuels we use now cause clearing of
natural ecosystems for agriculture. Adding energy
production to our current and growing demand
for food production inevitably requires more land to
be converted to agriculture, whether or not the biofuel
is grown directly on that land.
So biofuels either directly or indirectly cause land
clearing, which releases carbon to the atmosphere and
contributes to global warming. This is the biofuel
carbon debt.”
Peat expert Professor Siegert of Munich University commenting
on palm oil power plants in Germany:
"We were able to prove that the making of these plantations and
the burning of the rain forests and peat areas emits many
thousands of times as much CO2 as we then are able to prevent
by using palm oil. And that is a disastrous balance for the climate."
2nd Generation Biofuels
Where will all this biomass come from?
• Vast new industrial tree plantations
Industrial tree plantations displace forests and other
ecosystems as well as communities and food production.
They require large quantities of pesticides and fertilisers
• More genetic engineering
Genetically engineered trees and GE microbes.
* More soil erosion and desertification worldwide
Crop and forestry residues are to be used for making
‘advanced biofuels’, stripping the soils of fertility and
biodiversity. One scientific letter states that using maize
residues for biofuels could increase soil erosion 100-fold.
Tree Plantation in South Africa:
photo: Wally Menne
Risks of large-scale ecosystem collapse
African Palm in Indonesia
GHGs from deforestation contribute
20% global GHG emissions (IPCC AR4)
IPCC AR4: Deforestation = 20% GHG
70,000 fires burn in Amazon,
September 2007. NASA
Energy balances…and how the EU claims
that biofuels deliver GHG reductions?
Soya, Brazil
Corn for ethanol, US
Palm oil, Malaysia
30% reductions?
How can the EU claim 'greenhouse
gas savings' from biofuels?
Step 1
Ignore all carbon emissions from indirect land-use change.
If a plantation company in Malaysia sells palm oil from
an older plantation (for which they destroyed rainforest
in the past) for biofuels, claim that no land has been
deforested for biofuels – even if the same company burns
and cuts down more rainforest for a new plantation to meet
existing demands for food and cosmetics.
Step 2:
Allow companies to provide all the information
themselves and to pay their own auditors. Also
allow for bilateral agreements. This means the EU
can sign an agreement for example with Brazil
under which all biofuels from Brazil have to be
classed as climate-friendly – never mind the
destruction of the Amazon and other ecosystems.
Step 3:
Claim there are positive indirect emission savings.
Waste-products from biofuel refining can be fed to cattle.
Hence, assume that the more biofuels we produce, the
less soya we need to grow to feed our cattle and the less
land-use change and agricultural emissions there will be
overall.
So convinced by their own creative accounting…
“By driving, you will be saving the
planet. And the more you drive, the
more you prevent catastrophic
climate change.”
Biopact ( 29th October 2007)
And even rapeseed oil…
Paul Crutzen, Oct 2007
Nobel Prize winning chemist
Scientific research of Rapeseed Oil and Maize biofuels:
Life-cycles emissions of Rapeseed Oil and Maize
produce up to 70% and 50% more greenhouse gases
respectively than fossil fuels.
This contrasts with the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership
figures of a 45-65% carbon emission saving for oil
seed rape and 25-40% saving for corn ethanol.
Who is Lobbying Government?
• Convergence of six macro interest groups:
Big agribusiness
Biotech industries
Fossil fuel corportations
Transportation industries
Venture capitalists
Power generation (electricity and heat)
Lobbying at UNFCCC level is now getting very sophisticated; High level
lobbying to add industrial agriculture as a climate solution!
Legislating for a Biofuels Boom
& Expert Reports
Renewable Energy Directive (RED) for road transport, 10% and
overall 20% by 2020
FoE report April 2009 shows that LUC from biodiesel could have
doubled GHG emissions since RTFO inception one year earlier
= additional 500,000 cars!
Jan 2010: RFA reports just 4% biofuels for road transport and 20%
overall meets the (weak) RTFO sustainability standards.
Malaysian palm oil linked to 130 year carbon debt and direct
and indirect LUC not accounted for.
A Whole New Market…
Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs)
Greenpeace
blog.greenenergytv.com/
blog/greenenergytv/0/0...
Biofuels & biomass:
2 x Onshore wind
1.33 x Recycled veg oil
NGO Response?
• Moratorium Call
• Lobbying against RED; minor concession gained with
RTFO
• Challenging ROCs
• Individual campaigns against biofuel and biomass power
station applications
• Direct Action from several activist groups
Anti-Agrofuels: the clock’s ticking…
Anti-Biofuel Protests…
"The saving of our world from pending
doom will come, not through the
complacent adjustment of the conforming
majority, but through the creative
maladjustment of a nonconforming
minority."
Martin Luther King,
Strength to Love