Ask European politicians to vote against biofuel targets
Reinhard Behrend - 03.07.2008 02:57
European Union policies are creating an artificial market in biofuels, which is leading to large-scale destructive investment across the world.
Now, the EU is debating plans to expand biofuels by increasing the mandatory biofuel target to 10% by 2020, and two committees of the European Parliament will be voting on those proposals during July. Two recent studies show that virtually all agrofuels result in higher greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuels they replace.
EU biofuel targets and incentives are already threatening communities, rainforests and other ecosystems, food security and the climate.
The Members of European Parliament (MEPs) must vote against biofuel targets and instead support an immediate EU moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures.
Please ask MEPs to vote against biofuel targets and support an agrofuel moratorium.
On 7th July, the Environment Committee will vote on the Renewable Energy Directive and, on 16th July, there will be a vote in the Industry Committee.
The Renewable Energy Directive includes a 10% biofuel target for transport.
Already, the current 5.75% biofuel target and the EU’s declared intention to further increase this by 2020 is encouraging large-scale land conversion to agrofuel monocultures across the world, as well as investment in refineries and infrastructure, including roads, waterways and ports which will open up the world’s last large continuous tropical forests to destruction.
The ‘sustainability criteria’ put forward by the European Commission are completely inadequate. They include no social criteria – i.e. they allow even agrofuels linked to human rights abuses to be classed as ‘sustainable’, they leave many large biodiverse areas, such as the Brazilian Cerrado, unprotected, and they include greenhouse gas default values which are contrary to peer-reviewed studies.
However, even if the criteria were strengthened, they would still not address indirect impacts, i.e. the fact higher commodity prices are already leading to large-scale monoculture expansion at the expense of rainforests, small farmers and other communities, food production, wetlands and other biodiverse ecosystems all over the world.
Only a moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures and, in particular, on all targets and incentives, can prevent further harm (see: www.econexus.info/biofuels.html).
A letter is ready for sending to all MEPs from  http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=274.
It would also be very helpful if people represented by an MEP could contact them directly – by phoning them or meeting them in person. Personal contacts with MEPs are by far the most effective.
MEPs are listed at
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public.do?language=en .
Some of the destructive agrofuel investments include:
+ The accelerated destruction of the Brazilian Cerrado for sugar cane and soybean: According to the Brazilian NGO Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza, 152,000 hectares of land designated by the government as ‘conservation areas’ are being converted to sugarcane plantations. According to an IUF report, half of the Cerrado has already been converted to monocultures and all of the rest is likely to be destroyed before 2030. This will have cause the extinction of very large numbers of species, destroy the livelihoods of large numbers of people, including indigenous communities, and accelerate climate change by releasing large amounts of carbon held in the soil and vegetation and destroying an essential watershed for the Amazon forest.
+ High soya prices, guaranteed by government support for agrofuels, are encouraging investment in new waterways and ports in South America: In Paraguay, for example, Cargill have been granted permission for a mega-port in Asuncion, which is likely to pollute the drinking water supply on which more than a million people depend. It will also lead to major biodiversity losses and to further soya expansion inland.
+ In Tanzania, large areas of community land are being handed over to foreign companies to plant jatropha for biodiesel. This includes 9,000 hectares of land which have been handed over to the UK firm Sun Biofuels plc. This is land on which over 2,800 families – over 11,000 people – depend for their livelihoods. Compensation payments are being made to the families but are unlikely to be sufficient to access new land.
None of the ‘sustainability criteria’ being discussed in the EU can prevent any of those investments.
They do not currently include social criteria but, even if they did, they could not address indirect impacts and the wider investments encouraged by high commodity prices.
The greenhouse gas default values which have been proposed do not in any way reflect the real climate change impacts: Two recent peer-reviewed studies, by T Searchinger et al and J Fargione et al show that, at present, virtually all agrofuels result in higher greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuels they replace, provided indirect impacts are considered. Yet the default values being discussed suggest that virtually all agrofuels save emissions – something not backed up by any peer-reviewed study.
Only a moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures can prevent further harm being caused by EU biofuel policy. Over 200 organisations from North and South support a call for such an EU moratorium. All targets and incentives must be dropped because right now, sustainability cannot be guaranteed.
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