[NYTr] Biofuels Are No Cure for Climate Change

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

In These Times via CubaNow - Nov 19, 2007
http://www.cubanow.net/global/loader.php?&secc=10&item=3736&c=2

Biofuels Are No Cure for Climate Change

By Megan Tady

Cubanow.- The bee in my bonnet this time is biofuels. They're nothing
new, but governments and corporations are pushing biofuels with a
renewed ferocity as the panacea for our ailing planet. But just as
biofuels are working their way into our climate-cures lexicon,
organizations, environmentalists and even the United Nations are
blowing a very loud whistle. They warn that the United States and the
European Union's renewable energy plans, which rely on biofuels, will
have devastating impacts for the global South, turn our gaze away from
investing in truly carbon-free technologies, and even add a flame to
the fire igniting climate change.

Last month, Jean Ziegler, a U.N. expert, called for a five-year
moratorium on biofuel production, telling the Associated Press, "The
effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of
maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is
absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people."

Last week, the humanitarian organization Oxfam International denounced
the EU's proposal for 10 percent of transport fuels to come from
biofuels by 2020, saying it could "spell disaster for some of the
world's poorest people." The target for renewable-fuel use in the
United States is 35 billion gallons a year.

We're being battered left and right with ominous news about climate
change, so the idea of filling our tanks and heating our homes with
biofuels is naturally comforting. Biofuels sound green. They're made
from things that were once green—corn, palm oil, sugar cane and other
agricultural products. And they're being touted as green. A Department
of Energy's resource page for biofuels says, "Hey students! Biofuels
such as bioethanol and biodiesel can make a big difference in improving
our environment."

But don't judge a climate cure by its color. Give it a rub, and you'll
find that the term 'biofuels' is actually obscuring an insidious
reality. For that reason, many people, especially in the global South,
have taken to calling them "agrofuels."

Consider this statement from the Landless Worker's Movement in Brazil
in March, where biofuel production is skyrocketing: "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."

And it's this agricultural production that has so many people worried.
Biofuels need land, which means traditional food crops are being
elbowed off of the field for fuel crops. Biofuel production is
literally taking the food out of people's mouths and putting into our
gas tanks. Already, increased food costs sparked by increased demand
are leaving populations hungry. The price of wheat has stretched to a
10-year high, while the price of maize has doubled.

Need more land? Clear cut some forest. Is there a word beyond irony to
describe a plan to mitigate climate change that relies on cutting down
the very trees that naturally remove carbon from the atmosphere?
Stupidity, perhaps? The logic is like harvesting a sick patient's lungs
to save her heart. Huge tracks of Amazon rainforest are being raised to
the biofuels alter like a sacrificial lamb, and the UN suggests that 98
percent of Indonesia's rainforest will disappear by 2022, where heavy
biofuel production is underway.

Still need land? Just take it. The human rights group Madre, which is
backing the five-year moratorium, says agrofuel plantations in Brazil
and Southeast Asia are displacing indigenous people. In an editorial
published on CommonDreams last week, Madre Communication Director Yifat
Susskind wrote, "People are being forced to give up their land, way of
life, and food self-sufficiency to grow fuel crops for export."

If this climate cure had a prescription bottle, the side effects would
read: "Biofuels may cause drowsiness, headaches, human rights abuses,
land deforestation, water depletion, worldwide hunger, and climate
change." Wait, climate change? That's right; this cure is actually a
cause. Biofuels themselves may have a small carbon footprint, but the
energy used to grow and process the fuel make for one large bear paw in
the mud. Biofuels depend on the manufacturing of fertilizers, fuel used
to power equipment, and fuel used to transport crops and fuels, which
can offset any gains made in using biofuels. An October study by the
Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen determined that usage of nitrogen
fertilizers causes biofuels to contribute more to global warming than
petrol.

The Department of Energy (DOE) says biomass products, of which biofuels
are derived, are "often more environmentally benign than their
petroleum-derived counterparts." If the DOE was a betting man, how much
would it wager on 'often?'

The movement against biofuels has grown from a groundswell to a tidal
wave. In January, more than 220 organizations worldwide appealed to the
European Parliament to abandon their mandatory biofuels target. Even
the International Monetary Fund is feeling nervous. In October, an IMF
research team posted an article on the IMF's website which noted,
"Until new technologies are developed, using food to produce biofuels
might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water
all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further."

It's new, carbon-free and sustainable technologies that we need to be
investing in, rather than a plan that has as much stock as Bush's
missile defense scheme. Madre said that the moratorium on biofuels
should be accompanied by technologies that don't compromise global food
security.

Susskind wrote, "We need sustainable solutions to climate change, not
corporate solutions that seek to simply shift our energy addiction from
one resource to another. Creative and practical solutions for meeting
our energy requirement—including some local, sustainable biofuel
programs—are being developed around the world."

In theory, biofuel production could reduce poverty by increasing jobs
for small farmers around the world. But Oxfam warns that the "huge
plantations emerging to supply the EU pose more threats than
opportunities for poor people." If we're going to pull the current form
of biofuels production out from under places like debt-riddled Brazil,
we need to replace it with another plan that offers sustainable
economic development for poor communities.

Oxfam suggests the EU implement safeguards in biofuel production that
protect land rights, livelihoods, workers rights and food security.
"The EU set its biofuel target without checking the impact on people
and the environment," Oxfam spokesperson Robert Bailey said in a press
release. "The EU must include safeguards to ensure that the rights and
livelihoods of people in producing countries are protected. Without
these, the ten per cent target should be scrapped and the EU should go
back to the drawing board."

Until then, the Department of Energy is exactly right. Biofuels will
make a big difference in improving our environment—"our" being the
United States and the EU, and nobody else.

[Megan Tady is a National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com.
Previously, she worked as a reporter for the NewStandard, where she
published nearly 100 articles in one year. Megan has also written for
Clamor, CommonDreams, E Magazine, Maisonneuve, PopandPolitics, and
Reuters.]