Transcript Demand reduction is key

Biofuels and their impacts on
Global Climate, People and
Forests
Biofuelwatch
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
introduced by Dr Andrew Boswell, biofuelwatch and UK
Green Party councillor on Norfolk County Council
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Summary
• The UK RTFO / EU policy context
• Public policy debate has been sidelined
• Impacts on People & Voices from the
South
• Impacts of Ecology
• Climate Change background - Agrofuels /
biofuels are accelerating climate change
• Certification = no viable answer
• Descending the transport emissions curve
- Demand reduction is key
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
The UK RTFO
• Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation
(RTFO) mandates for all road fuels:
April 2008 2.5% biofuel by volume
April 2009 3.75%
April 2010 5.0% (EU 5.75%)
Consumers will not be able to buy fuel
without biofuel after April 2008
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
US / EU Biofuel Policy –
going off the graph
EU – 10% by
2020 (1% now)
US – 20% by
2020 (4% now)
2010
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
2020
Agrofuels –
no public policy debate
• Even current 1% EU penetration has
taken us into ‘downstream’ phase of
implementation
• Yet, there has been no consistent or
complete scientific and policy
scrutiny
• Bypassed by Governments and
industry
• Public policy debate is urgently
needed – moratorium is needed to
facilitate this
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Mega-scale Agrofuel drivers
• Government and corporate subsidy and
promotion
• Fits “Business as usual” policies and paradigms
– Year-on-year economic growth
– Avoid unpopular “demand reduction” politics
• Short term “energy security” fix
– Less pressure on Oil hotspots – Mid-East/Iraq
– Stabilising Oil price?
– EU / US “Oil independence”
• New global mega-industry and infrastructure
– agribusiness, biotech, and chemical sectors
– refining, tankage and shipping sectors
– commodity markets (eg Palm Oil, sugar, corn)
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Agrofuel issues
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) balances
• Environmental impacts:
Deforestation, loss of habitats /
biodiversity, water depletion, soil
erosion, chemicals
• Social impacts:
Poverty, land grabbing, land conflicts,
human rights, labour, food security and
sovereignty
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Recent Publications
http://www.grain.org/seedling_files/seed-07-07-en.pdf
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/ABN_Agro.pdf
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/agrofuels_reality_check.pdf
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Impacts on People
• Use of bioenergy in rural economies
– Could help – especially women BUT
– Large scale monocultures (eg 11,200 people to
be evicted by Sun Biofuels Jatropha plantation
in Tanzania)
– Governments welcome in large companies to
boost export market
• Land grabbing
– Governments allow companies to get around
land laws
– Some 2 billion hectares of Southern land up for
recolonisation
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
From African BN document
• “In Uganda, there is an apparent failure to
recognise that by encouraging a
favourable climate for agrofuels, foreign
companies focussed on export are likely to
take over the direction of biofuel
production” Timothy Byakola, Uganda
• “The most fertile lands, with best access
to water are being targeted, even though
these lands are already being used for
food production by small-scale farmers”
Abdallah Mkindee, Tanzania
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
From African BN document
• “There seems to be a lack of clarity over
whether investment and targets are aimed
at production of biofuels for the Zambian
market or for export. It seems that
companies such as D1 Oils may be
promoting biofuels as a domestic energy
strategy, in order to open the door to
amenable legislation, while really
intending to focus biofuel production on
the export market”. Matonga Mundia,
Zambia
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Impacts on People
• Human rights
– Pesticide use (especially with GM varieties etc)
– Deforestation causing health problems
– Land conflicts – paramilitaries in Indonesia and
Colombia
– Violent evictions and murders
• Displaced peoples
– UN warns up 60 million biofuel refugees
– Displaced to less than subsistence rural
existence, or to the urban poor in mega cities
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Food vs Fuel
FAO Agricultural Outlook, July 2007
• “increased demand for biofuels is
causing fundamental changes to
agricultural markets that could drive
up world prices for many farm
products”
FAO, September 2007
• “Developing countries face serious
social unrest as they struggle to cope
with soaring food prices”
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Food vs Fuel
• Global prices pushed up
by biofuel demand
• Fuel/freight 
• Low-Income FoodDeficit countries
(LIFDCs) :: Social
unrest / food riots
• Feed prices 
• Huge industry denial
• Food sovereignty
– Best land taken for
agrofuels
– Even import poor quality
food
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
The right to food
• The Special Rapporteur also calls the attention of the General
Assembly to two emerging issues: the first is the issue of the
potentially grave negative impact of biofuels (or agrofuels) on the
right to food. The second is the urgent need to improve protection
for people who are fleeing from hunger, famine and starvation in
their countries of origin and face numerous human rights
violations if they try to cross borders into developed countries.
• The Special Rapporteur is gravely concerned that biofuels will
bring hunger in their wake. The sudden, ill-conceived, rush to
convert food — such as maize, wheat, sugar and palm oil — into
fuels is a recipe for disaster. There are serious risks of creating a
battle between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hungry
in developing countries at the mercy of rapidly rising prices for
food, land and water. If agro-industrial methods are pursued to
turn food into fuel, then there are risks that unemployment and
violations of the right to food may result, unless specific measures
are put in place to ensure that biofuels contribute to the
development of small-scale peasant and family farming.
22 August 2007, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean
Ziegler – UN General Assembly
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Ecological Impacts
• Massive land use
change
– Renton Righelato
and Dominick V.
Spracklen, Science,
August 2007
– Ecological
restoration and
forestation would
sequester 2-9 more
carbon than biofuels
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Crop burning / Forest fires / Soya
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Ecological Impacts
Biodiversity
• Biodiversity hotspots hidden by official
gazetting in Malaysia/Indonesia
• Biofuel threat to Great Apes highlighted by
Jane Goodall, Richard Leakey and others
Set-aside in EU – creating a gap in
environmental management
• 45% of Europe’s butterflies, 80% declines
in bee diversity and 70% declines in the
diversity of wild flowers
• France – little bustard,Austrian bird of
prey – depend on set-aside for survival
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Hundreds of NGOs in
Latin America, Asia
and Africa have
spoken out against
large-scale biofuel
monocultures.
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
from a declaration by Latin
American NGOs
• “We want food sovereignty, not
biofuels…While Europeans maintain their
lifestyle based on automobile culture, the
population of Southern countries will have
less and less land for food crops and will
loose its food sovereignty…We are
therefore appealing to the governments
and people of the European Union
countries to seek solutions that do not
worsen the already dramatic social and
environmental situation of the peoples of
Latin America, Asia and Africa. “
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Sawit Watch, Indonesian NGO
• “Palm oil for biofuels increases social
conflicts and undermines land reform
in Indonesia…It is unavoidable that,
as a consequence of Europe's
biofuels policy, the land rights of
indigenous peoples and local
communities will be relinquished
further, and that food security will be
undermined and lands for
agricultural purposes and
subsistence livelihoods will diminish.”
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the
Earth Nigeria
• “It is a push by industry to make
another scramble for Africa, grab the
land and continue with business as
usual. The industrial bio-energy
push to do increased bio-energy
demand will be nothing other than
an effort at extending the frontiers of
neo-colonialism in its continued
march on the back of the fabled
market forces”
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Landless Movement of Brazil (MST)
• “We can't call this a ‘bio-fuels program’.
We certainly can't call it a ‘bio-diesel
program’. Such phrases use the prefix
‘bio-‘ to subtly imply that the energy in
question comes from ‘life’ in general. This
is illegitimate and manipulative. We need
to find a term in every language that
describes the situation more accurately, a
term like agro-fuel. This term refers
specifically to energy created from plant
products grown through agriculture.”
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
What emissions drive CC?
• Deforestation, agriculture and peat
• Anthropogenic energy –only 60%
From Stern
Report
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Arctic Ice 1979-2007
See video at : http://tinyurl.com/28keqr
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Arctic 2007 Summer Ice Melt
Non-linear effect?
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Descending the fossil emissions curve
- Demand reduction is key
Current EU energy policy
Biofuels being sold at this level
160
– BUT IS THE OPPOSITE
140
TRUE?
120 90% carbon emission
reduction
needed
100
Energy efficiency and energy
URGENTLY!
reduction
80
Carbon management – use less carbon
60
40
Decarbonise – switch from carbon completely
20
October 2007
1990
2000
2010
Biofuels and
their impacts
2020
Do Agrofuels save emissions?
• Agrofuel infrastructure is built on
Fossil Fuel infrastructure
– Intensive agriculture – fossil fuel based
– fertilisers, farm equipment, Nitrous
oxide emissions (300* CO2), soil carbon
emissions
– Feedstock transport, shipping, ports
– Refining (coal, gas fired plants!) ;
process chemicals
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
N20 needs further study
• microbes convert N fertiliser to N2O
– NEW STUDY by Nobel prizewinner Paul Crutzen, August
2007 : 3 to 5 per cent = twice the widely accepted
figure of 2 per cent used by the International Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC).
• oilseed rape biodiesel, for example, is up to 70%
worse for the climate than fossil fuel diesel (also
corn ethanol)
• UK and EU Biofuels policy and certification
schemes in scientific doubt
• N2O emissions – chemical fertilizer impact
greater in tropics
• Both EU home grown biofuels and tropical
imports
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
UK Government figures NOW
in complete scientific doubt
• From LowCVP presentation to UK
Bioenergy conference Sept 2007
Unaccounted for N20
???
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
UK Government figures NOW
in complete scientific doubt
• From LowCVP
presentation to UK
Bioenergy
conference Sept
2007
Corn Ethanol -50%
October 2007
Oil Seed rape
biodiesel -70%
Biofuels and their impacts
Massive destruction beyond
N2O - Agrofuels are
accelerating climate change
Fires to clear land for palm oil,
Kalimantan
Photo by Nordin, Save our Borneo
Deforestation for oil palms,
Colombia
Peat drainage and destruction
Drainage
• Dry peat - oxidises and, over time, emits
all its carbon as CO2. 42-50 billion tonnes
of carbon stored in those SE Asian
peatlands.
Fires
• Many set by plantation companies, greatly
accelerate the loss of carbon.
• Of the 27.1 million hectares of peatland in
South-east Asia, 12 million hectares are
deforested and mostly drained.
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Agrofuels as a new driver of
peatland destruction
Indonesia plans 20 million hectares new oil
palm plantations to meet biodiesel demand.
$17.4 billion investment deals in Indonesian
palm oil agreed this year.
According to 2006 FAO report, growth in
European rapeseed oil biodiesel has
significantly pushed up global palm oil
prices.
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Deforestation
• “with partial deforestation the entire
landscape could become drier and a
domino effect could occur producing
a ‘tipping point’ affecting the whole
forest”.
Conclusion of recent scientific conference
• Amazon drying out – die-back threat
increasing - 120 billion tonnes of
carbon dioxide
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Amazon Deforestation and
Drought
Deforestation in Novo Progreso,
Brazil ; Alberto Cesar/Greenpeace/AP
October 2007
Amazon drought 2005, Lake Rei
Biofuels and their impacts
Massive
Massive
emission
land-useexports
change in
from
industralised
global South, and
nations
crop commodity
to global South
traffic
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Emission trickery
Exporting emissions
from Northern
transport to Southern
agriculture and landuse
NB: Soil + Peat
not included
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
The Climate Context
• 1st generation biofuels
– Scientific doubt on N20 for all fuel supply
chains including EU oilseed rape
– Already a climate disaster
• Eg Indonesian peat lands
• Deforestation tropics
• Yet mass-scale infrastructure and investment
ready
for
Wend are
currently
in ‘first generation’
• 2 generation biofuels
world
there
is a gap to any viable
– 15-20– years
to develop
– BUT emissions
must be
now generation’
second
generation
– cut
‘first
– Biohazards (even now in R&D)
problemsboreal
mustandbe
addressed
– Deforestation
temporate
•   Transport sectorBiofuels
DEMAND
and their impacts
REDUCTION
October 2007
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Certification schemes
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) balances
–URGENT need for full lifecycle,
whole system (macro) carbon
balance studies
• Direct and indirect environmental impacts:
Deforestation, loss of habitats / biodiversity,
water depletion, soil erosion, chemicals
• Direct and indirect social impacts:
Poverty, land conflicts, human rights, labour,
food security and sovereignty
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Certification context
• Governments’
response to no
public policy debate
is to develop
‘certification
schemes’ or
‘sustainability
criteria’
• Calls for
international scheme
(UK Govt., Ford etc) Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Sustainability criteria
• Driven by interests of industry and
government
• Displacement / leakage not handled
– Existing agriculture displaced by agrofuels
moves into new areas
• Macro impacts through commodity price
shifts not handled
– Amazon deforestation ←→ soy price
• US Corn for ethanol displaces US soy => soy price
– EU oilseed rape use causes palm oil prices
causes palm oil expansion
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Descending the transport emissions
curve - Demand reduction is key
160Reduce vehicle emissions by 50%
Current EU energy policy
- smaller, more efficient vehicles
140
120
100
90% carbon
Reduce
journeys –emission
planning, modal shift,
80
60
decouple needed
transport
reduction
URGENTLY!
from economy
Reduce liquid fuel – plug-in hybrids
40
Change Supply - Concentrating Solar Power
?
20
October 2007
1990
2000
2010
Biofuels and
their impacts
2020
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts
Networking
• What factsheets, lobbying support would be
useful for your organisation?
• immediate moratorium call on EU incentives
for agrofuels, EU imports of agrofuels and EU
agroenergy monocultures.
http://www.econexus.info/biofuels.html
• Sign up to the biofuelwatch yahoo group - send a
blank email to [email protected]
• www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
• Email us at [email protected]
if you
Biofuels and their impacts
would like to get more involved in the campaign.
October 2007
October 2007
Biofuels and their impacts