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Third World food land destroyed for European fuel
German rain forest advocacy group - 01.03.2007 09:15
At the EU summit on 8 and 9 March 27 heads of government will decide about the forced use of palm oil and other plantation products from the tropics for producing energy in Europe.
Oil palm and soya bean growing are turning into a catastrophe for the rain forest.
The German group “Rettet den Regenwald” have compiled information on that about Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia. German public television has just broadcast programmes about the issue.
Rettet den Regenwald ask you to take part in protests through their website,  http://www.regenwald.org
It’s worth it, they say, because the concerns of environmental activists are beginning to be heard.
There’s an English letter to political leaders prepared. If you give Rettet den Regenwald your name and address the letter will be sent automatically in your name to more than 100 ministers and heads of government in the European Union.
Calculation of how SE Asian palm oil can be expected to cause 2x-8x the emissions of the fossil fuel it replaces is now published at http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources.php#calc2.
A really excellent clip from a recent More 4 (part of UK Channel 4 network) news programme is available at the link below. Broadcast on February 19th, it explains why the proposed EU biofuels directive threatens rainforest and peatlands in South East Asia, and WHY drained peatlands create absolutely massive carbon emissions that add significantly to the global total of carbon in the atmosphere and hence to climate change. It uses simple graphics to explain these issues very clearly.
http://www.channel4.com/more4/news/news-opinion-feature.jsp?id=542
More on the related issues is at http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources.php#calc2.
Here’s the letter. Change it at will.
Dear Head of State or Minister,
At the EU Summit on 8th/9th March, you will be asked to support proposals for mandatory biofuel targets of 10% by 2010. I urge you not to support these proposals and use any veto that you can to prevent the proposals becoming mandatory across the EU. I set out my reasons below.
Large opposition from civil society in the global South:
Well over 200 organisations from North and South have signed an Open Letter (available at web address: http://tinyurl.com/2vgtke) to call on the EU to abandon biofuel targets, because of the serious threats not just to the climate and rainforests, but also to food security, human and land rights and biodiversity. Recently the poor in Mexico have seen staple food prices rise steeply leading to civil unrest because of US ethanol production, and world grain reserves are now at their lowest level for over twenty years. Rising food prices and diverting land from food to ‘energy crop’ production undermine the EU’s commitments with regard to the UN Millennium Goals. Please read this Open Letter that represents millions of people from the Southern nations.
Biofuels are not a proven technology for climate change mitigation:
The energy and carbon saving balances of biofuels are disputed by experts. Most studies are flawed by not covering the full production life-cycle and produce over optimistic estimates of gains. An increasing number of reports, looking at the full life-cycle, show the savings for carbon emissions to be minimal or even negative. Biofuels are then diluted with conventional fossil fuels to create the final blend at the pump – any minimal savings are further diluted. For example, with 5.75% biofuel in the blend, a raw biofuel saving of 17% of carbon emission will be reduced to less than 1% in the fuel sold/dispensed at the pump. A study done for the European Commission in 2002 found that converting all 5.6 million hectares of set-asides to the highest-yield energy crops could reduce the EU’s emissions by no more than 0.3%, whilst having a devastating impact on biodiversity.
EU imports of energy crops from tropical nations threatens the global climate:
The EU doesn’t have the capacity to grow sufficient crops to meet a 10% target within Europe, and proposes to import crops from tropical countries where production is known to damage rainforests, peatlands and other ecosystems. The proposals before the EU Summit will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but will instead threaten to further accelerate global warming by speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests that are crucial in regulating the global climate.
Indonesia’s biofuel plans, linked directly to Europe’s policy, are set to expand palm oil production 43-fold (see report available at: http://www.channel4.com/more4/news/news-opinion-feature.jsp?id=542
and destroy 20 million hectares of rainforest. If you allow this expansion to happen, most of that country’s remaining rainforests and peatlands would be destroyed, releasing up to 50 billion tonnes of carbon. This is the equivalent of over six years of global fossil fuel burning and could well be enough to push us beyond the 2oC warming which the EU are officially committed to avoid.
A recent TV news item on the UK Channel 4 network explained how drained peatlands create these absolutely massive carbon emissions that add significantly to the global total of carbon in the atmosphere and hence contribute to climate change. The video clip uses simple graphics to explain these issues very clearly, and may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/yv3bj7. Please view this news clip that clearly shows the risks to the global climate from mass-scale biofuels production in the tropics.
Devastating for biodiversity:
Within Europe, biofuel plans require the abolition of compulsory set-asides. The European Environment Agency has warned that this will seriously reduce biodiversity in Europe. Many bird and insect species now only survive because of set-asides. Many of the pollinators are already in steep decline, and a further increase in intensive agriculture across Europe could have a disastrous impact on those species on which much of agriculture depends. Habitat loss and intensive agriculture are amongst the main drivers of biodiversity losses worldwide, and Europe’s biofuel plans are likely to drastically reduce biodiversity not just here but across the global South. Those plans will make it impossible for the EU to achieve its goal of ending biodiversity losses by 2010.
Second generation biofuels will be too late and not acceptable to consumers:
Second generation biofuels based on ligno-cellulosic technology are still at the research stage and do not yet offer a viable commercial route to meeting the EU Biofuels target for 2020, either. These fuels are likely to be based on genetic engineering technology, both in the crops and their processing. The biotech industry hopes that consumers will accept GE food and feed crops when and if they are used for biofuels. However, it is unlikely that European consumers will accept the wide risks associated with GM technology and the potential threat of contamination to European food crops and biodiversity.
Biofuels should not be used to trade for reduced car emission standards:
The EU energy strategy from the Commissioners in January called for car manufacturers to make innovative gains in fuel efficiency. This was a good policy - stringent emission standards are one of the key measures needed to tackle transport emissions! I was shocked to learn that the industry has been lobbying the EU for higher biofuel targets to avoid making these stringent, but perfectly realistic, gains in fuel efficiency that would save significant carbon emissions. For every additional gram of carbon dioxide that European cars are allowed to emit per kilometre, hundreds of thousands of hectares of energy crop monocultures and grasslands will displace virgin rainforest, peatlands and indigenous croplands in the tropics, releasing massive additional CO2 emissions.
Strong demand reduction measures are needed in the EU transport sector:
Europe needs strong measures that will truly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions: targets to increase energy efficiency, including in the transport sector, and significant reductions in overall energy use, plus policies which promote clean, decentralised and renewable energies, such as wind and solar power.
Your support against the EU Biofuels targets is essential to protect the South and future climate stability.
I strongly hope that you will stand up against lobbying from both the car industry and biotech companies, and speak against EU biofuels targets. This is the right decision for stabilising the climate, the global environment and the needs of those local communities in the global South, whose livelihoods and food security are threatened by expanding biofuel monocultures.
Your veto of the biofuel target at the EU summit will be crucial not just for the future of South-east Asia’s rainforests and peatlands, and for the future of forests throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, but also, critically, for the future stability of the climate.
Yours
To sign on go to http://www.regenwald.org/protestaktion.php?id=137
Scroll to the bottom for the English letter text.
Handle the window as follows:
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They promise to use your data only for the protest campaign.
The call is signed by
Reinhard Behrend
Chairman Rettet den Regenwald (Save the Rain Forest)
Friedhofsweg 28
22337 Hamburg
Germany
Tel. #49 - 40 - 4103804
 info@regenwald.org
http://www.regenwald.org
 E-Mail: info@regenwald.org  Website: http://www.regenwald.org
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