EU reducing biofuel target?

The Commission announced a proposal last week to reduce biofuel mandates to 5% by 2020, revising the controversial target of 10% of fuel transport to come from renewable sources by 2020. The 10% target was primarily envisaged as being met from biofuels. While recognising this was a step forward, aid agency Oxfam is calling on EU leaders to completely scrape the target. “The EU must recognise the devastating impact its biofuel policies are having on the poorest people through surging food prices, worsening hunger and contributing to climate change”, said Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive.

Introduced in 2009 in an attempt to fight climate change, biofuel targets have increasingly become controversial as this resulted land being used to produce biofuel in place of food, impacting on supplies of food and contributing to increasing food prices. International Land Coalition estimates that around two-thirds of all large-scale land deals around the world in the past 10 years have been acquisitions in order to grow biofuel. Many such deals have displaced local communities with claims on the land or have involved laying claim to water rights. “Europe has helped spark a global rush for biofuels that is forcing poor families from their homes, while big business piles up the profits. Biofuels were meant to make transport greener, but European governments are pouring consumers' money down the drain, whilst depriving millions of people of food, land and water,” said Natalia Alonso, Head of Oxfam’s EU Office. According to Oxfam, in 2008 €3bn was spent in the EU on incentives for biofuel production, levels comparable to the cuts agreed in the Greek bailout mechanism earlier this year.

 

Oxfam’s alarm bell comes in the context of an informal energy ministers’ meeting in Cyprus last week where European Energy Commissioner Oettinger recognised the fact that the current EU policy had lead to “unfavourable developments such as the tearing down of rainforest to produce biofuel”. The ministers agree that anything over the 5% cap should be achieved without using food crops, but Oxfam calls the 5% cap itself ridiculous. “At this moment the biofuel use in the EU is only at 4.5%. So the new cap of 5% is actually an increase of what we’re using at the moment”, says Ruth Kelly, Oxfam’s economic policy advisor. The land used for growing the crops for biofuels in 2008, could have fed 127 million people according to Oxfam calculations revealed in its last week report, The Hunger Grains.

G20 action plan fails to address root causes hunger

According to CIDSE, the catholic development network, the G20 Agricultural Ministers’ Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture contributes little to tackling global hunger. The alliance says the plan is more concerned with mitigating the consequences of price volatility than with addressing its root causes. It is “a band aid for a big gaping wound; it won’t cure the ailing global food system,” as Gisele Henriques, CIDSE’s food expert said. “Although the recent spike in commodity prices has worsened the situation, we should not forget that even before the 2008 food price crisis there were over 800 million hungry. We must look beyond the markets for an answer to this injustice.”

The action plan, which has been significantly diluted during the negotiations on 22-23 June in Paris, aims at improving agricultural production, increasing market information and transparency, strengthening international policy coordination, improving and developing risk management tools for governments, firms and farmers, as well as improving the functioning of agricultural commodities’ derivatives markets. G20 Agricultural Ministers propose the establishment of emergency food stocks, necessary to address food crises, ignoring regulatory stocks which could resolve food price volatility in the mid-term. CIDSE urges the G20 to support the re-establishment of regulatory stocks, at local, national and regional levels, which would help curb the excessive volatility in prices for both consumers and producers. Yet matters of financial regulation of the food markets agricultural ministers left to their fellow financial ministers and central bank governors.

CIDSE emphasises that current production models must be reconsidered. A recent report by the UN Special Representative on the Right to Food demonstrates that agro-ecological innovations can double production in a period of 3 to 10 years and it is precisely this kind of production model that must be supported. This also means creating food policies which strengthen local production by small holder farmers, because they account for 75% of the world’s hungry. The G20 also failed to take serious its own inter-agency report on price volatility. This report, coordinated by the FAO and the OECD, underlines the negative role of biofuels on price volatility and recommends a rethink of policies which incentivise biofuels, adopted by many G20 States members. “The poor progress made at the Paris meeting confirms once more that the G20 is not the most legitimate forum to pre-determine decisions on global food security. It should reinforce more democratic multilateral bodies such as the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security instead,” said Henriques.

ActionAid report on biofuel consumption in Europe

Up to 100 million more people could go hungry if Europe commits itself to a huge increase in biofuels consumption in order to meet new European Union legislation, ActionAid says in a new report titled Meals per gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger. The legislation states that 10% of transport fuels must come from renewable sources by 2020. EU member states will fill almost all of their renewables targets by using industrial biofuels – fuels made on an industrial scale from agricultural crops, including important staple foods. The vast majority of industrial biofuels are made from maize, wheat, sugar cane and vegetable oils such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed.

In its report ActionAid calculates that by 2020 biofuel consumption in the EU will jump nearly four-fold and that two thirds will be imported, mainly from the developing world. As well as diverting food away from the people who need it most, this will push up prices. It is estimated that for every 1% rise in the price of food, 16 million more poor people become hungry. ActionAid also says that most industrial biofuels do not save greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the fossil fuels they are replacing. The increasing use of biofuels is resulting in massive land use change, often in carbon rich habitats such as tropical rainforests. Using extra fertiliser to grow biofuels releases nitrous oxide, one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses.

Report author Tim Rice said: “Miracles do not grow on trees, or from any other plants for that matter. Using crops to fuel cars increases hunger while failing to help stop climate change. The huge expansion in industrial biofuels use must be stopped. To meet the EU deadline, the UK government is now writing its national action plan which will set out its strategy for renewable energy for the next ten years. This plan must not commit the UK to any further increase in industrial biofuels.”

To meet the EU 10% target solely from biofuels, the total land area directly required to grow industrial biofuels in poor countries could reach 17.5m hectares, well over half the size of Italy. ActionAid has already found that increased biofuel use is having disastrous impacts on the developing world. Multinationals are acquiring land on a colossal scale. Across developing countries as a whole, EU companies have already acquired or are in negotiations for at least 5m hectares. This has led to displacement of people, lack of consultation and compensation, broken promises about wages and job opportunities, and food scarcity.

ActionAid is calling on EU member states to ensure they do not lock in industrial biofuels into their 2010 national action plans. The charity also says that transport and energy consumption must be reduced, targets and financial incentives for industrial biofuels ended and more support given to small-scale sustainable biofuels in the EU and elsewhere.

New ActionAid report: Europe must fight, not foster, hunger

In a week which marks the observance of World Food Day, World Poverty Day and a crucial meeting of EU Heads of State in Brussels, ActionAid is demanding that the EU urgently revisits its plans to address the world food crisis. In a new report, Bread and Butter Solutions to the Food Crisis, ActionAid urges the EU to do more to stem the impact of rising fuel and food prices on the world’s poor. Since the crisis started, the number of people going hungry each night has risen to one billion – one sixth of the world’s population. Furthermore, the FAO has estimated that food prices will remain high for the next five to ten years.

“Rising food and oil prices are acting as a double whammy, driving hunger to new levels and people to desperation,” said Carol Kayira, Food Rights Coordinator of ActionAid Malawi. “Upsets in the banking sector should not divert attention from Europe’s commitments to the poor. The food crisis has not gone away and a coherent European response is badly needed.” This year high prices for European agricultural goods are likely to mean a surplus of billions of Euros in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) pot. The EU is currently considering the use of €1bn of this excess cash to address the food crisis.

“The €1bn fund being proposed by the EU is a drop in the ocean when compared to what governments are spending to bail out the banks,” Ms Kayira added. “The EU should mobilise this food crisis fund and keep to its existing commitments on aid. By allocating more and better aid to agriculture, Europe can get back on track and address world hunger,” Ms Kayira added.

More and better aid is not the only action being proposed by ActionAid. The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), being negotiated between the EU and Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries pose a major threat to food security in these countries and must therefore be renegotiated. French MP Christiane Taubira, who wrote an official report for the French Government on the EPAs spoke to ActionAid yesterday on the potential impact of the EPAs: “The EPAs cast a shadow over the potential for development of the EU’s southern partners…. In particular the agricultural sector has to be subject to specific treatment, and an international right to food must be a priority objective.” She also called on the French Presidency of the EU to listen to the concerns recently expressed by Caribbean countries negotiating the EPAs: “The French Presidency must take into account the strong reticence expressed by negotiators from ACP countries which has even come to light within the CARIFORUM grouping, the only one to have initialled the full agreements to date,” Ms Taubira added.

Bread and Butter solutions also highlights the role which agrofuels have played in the recent upsurge of food prices. “In 2007 the EU used 2.85m hectares of farmable land to grow crops for agrofuels, rather than food,” said Laura Hurtado, Food Rights Coordinator at ActionAid Guatemala. “This has fuelled rising food prices and threatened millions more with hunger. Because Europe does not have enough land, it is increasingly looking to developing countries to meet its targets on biofuels. This will only intensify the food crisis.” ActionAid also warns Europe that GMOs will not address hunger in the world. Rather they will contribute to rising see and food prices and make farmers dependent on supply chains in the hands of a few multinational corporations protected by intellectual property rights.

Banks urged to stop fuelling harmful agrofuel boom

Many major European banks are funding the rapid expansion of agrofuel production in Latin America, leading to large scale deforestation, increasing human rights abuses and threatening food sovereignty, according to a new report of Friends of the Earth Europe, titled European financing of agrofuel production in Latin America. The report - amid global worries about the increasing impacts of rising food prices - calls for an end to investments by European banks in harmful agrofuel projects. Agrofuels have been blamed as a major factor driving up food prices. According to the UN and the World Bank, 100 million more people are currently facing severe hunger due to higher prices for basic foods.

The report documents how major European banks, such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Axa, HSBC, UBS and Credit Suisse are investing billions of Euros in the production and trade of sugar cane, soybeans and palm oil in Latin American countries. Fuels from sugar cane, soybeans and palm oil are increasingly used in Europe. Their large scale production in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia is extremely controversial as it leads to the destruction of the Amazon and other valuable ecosystems, as well as to the contamination of drinking water. Large scale plantations (see photo with burning sugarcane) also lead to human rights violations against peasants, with working conditions on some plantations in Brazil classed as modern slave labour. At the same time agrofuel companies are making record profits, enabled by loans, investments and other financial support from private banks.

All major European banks have invested billions of Euros over recent years in agrofuel producing companies such as Cargill, Bunge, ADM, Cosan and Brasil Ecodiesel. Several of these companies have been involved in, and convicted of, illegal activities in Latin America. Some examples of European banks’ involvement: In 2007 Deutsche Bank owned 35% of the shares of Brasil Ecodiesel. Bunge currently has credit facilities worth more than 1€bn from banks such as Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paris, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, KBC and Credit Suisse. In 2007 Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse provided financial services totalling more than 1€bn to Cosan.

Friends of the Earth Europe says banks should immediately stop their investments in such harmful agrofuel development. The NGO is also calling on the European Commission to revise its plans for a mandatory 10% target for the use of agrofuels in transport by 2020, which it says will exacerbate the problems associated with the production of agrofuels.

Oil industry undermines emissions reduction, says FoE

Oil companies have the potential to achieve more than 10% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without using agrofuels, reveals a report launched last week by Friends of the Earth Europe. Released on the day Shell and BP announced combined quarterly profits of 14.4billion US dollars, Extracting the truth: Oil industry efforts to undermine the Fuel Quality Directive uses industry's own data to show how oil companies are falsely claiming that the target proposed by the European Commission in revisions to the Fuel Quality Directive is unachievable. It shows that at least 10% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be realised through reduced gas flaring, improved energy efficiency and fuel switching at refineries, and without the need for agrofuels which can have negative environmental and socials impacts and have not been proven to reduce emissions overall.

Friends of the Earth Europe's report calculates that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of between 10.5% and 15.5% are possible through measures including less flaring and venting, energy efficiency improvements and fuel switching in refineries. The report comes at a time of record profits for oil companies and increasing attempts to portray themselves as environmentally responsible. In 2007, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, TOTAL, BP and ENI together earned together over 125billion US dollars.

The analysis puts oil industry attempts to obstruct the Fuel Quality Directive in the context of increased 'greenwashing'. Behind the scenes oil companies are lobbying against environmental legislation whilst in public they use advertising to suggest that they are reducing emissions. In 2007 Shell was found guilty of misleading advertising for an advert in which it claimed it used waste CO2 to grow flowers. A FoE speaker said: “Oil companies are not serious about their environmental performance. While they brand themselves as environmentally responsible, their CO2 emissions continue to rise. In reality the emissions of almost all of them are rapidly increasing and they are all investing heavily in energy-dirty tar sands, while their investments in renewable energy remain negligible or decrease.”

EU fuelling human right disaster in Indonesia

Palm oil production for food and agrofuels is resulting in widespread human rights abuses in Indonesia according to a report released by a coalition of international environmental groups. Losing Ground exposes the huge social problems being fuelled by EU targets to increase the use of agrofuels (often called biofuels) in transport. The report follows new research released last week which revealed that converting peatlands for palm oil in Indonesia releases 423 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels. According to Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe agrofuels campaigner the report shows that as well as being bad for the environment, fuels from palm oil are a disaster for people. “MEPs should listen to the evidence and reject the proposed 10% target at the forthcoming debate on this in the European Parliament. Instead of introducing targets for more agrofuels the EU should insist that all new cars are designed to be much more efficient. Governments must also take a strong position against the target and do their bit to reduce transport emissions by improving public transport and making it easier for people to walk and cycle."

The report by Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch, and LifeMosaic reveals that oil palm companies often use violent tactics to grab land from indigenous communities with the collusion of the police and authorities. Previously self-reliant families, who were able to meet their own needs from the forest around them, complain of being tricked into giving up their land with the promise of jobs and new developments. Instead they end up locked into debt and poorly paid work, while the bounty of the rainforest is replaced with monotonous oil palm plantations. Pollution from pesticides, fertilisers and the pressing process is also leaving some villages without clean water.

The European Commission has recently proposed a target for 10% of road transport fuel to come from agrofuels by 2020 in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, despite mounting evidence that agrofuels fail to deliver such reductions. These targets will fuel a huge expansion in the amount of land used to grow oil palm. Since 2005, Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch and LifeMosaic have worked closely together on a project aimed at bringing impartial information to communities affected by oil palm plantations in Indonesia, enabling them to make informed decisions about their land and their futures.

Food security as key: New biofuels report

If developing countries, particularly commodity producers are to benefit from biofuels sector development, they should consider strategic policy options that do not jeopardise their capacity to maintain sustainable food supply for their populations, according to a new study released by the Common Fund for Commodities at an international forum on biofuels held recently in Kuala Lumpur. “Fundamentally, there is a link between poverty reduction and biofuels sector development that can be promoted,” said Ambassador Ali Mchumo, the managing director of the Common Fund in Amsterdam.

“Both the outcome report and the study offer an assessment of the lifecycle costs and benefits of intensified biofuels production, while providing future outlook; and an attempt to identify the likely challenges and opportunities for commodity producers in developing countries in the coming years,” he said. The Biofuels study is the latest in the Commodity Issues Series commissioned by the Amsterdam-based intergovernmental organisation, whose mandate under the United Nations is to support developing countries that are commodity-dependent to improve and diversify commodities production and trade. It outlines a number of policy recommendations, specifically targeted to commodity-dependent developing countries, interested in broader bio-energy ventures and diversification.

The report further underscores the importance of astute policy formulation around four major areas that are pertinent in the ongoing debate about diversification policies for biofuels sector development, including food security issues and others, such as: energy security; rural and social development; climate change mitigation; export growth and diversification. At the forum in Kuala Lumpur, where member countries represented in the Common Fund were gathered for their annual meeting, prominent international experts made presentations demonstrating how different approaches work in the context of different countries and regions. In the report, the experts, including the lead author of the study, expanded on the potential food security implications of policies that have been undertaken by a number of countries and offered practical experiences gained in various biofuel initiatives in Brazil, India, Madagascar, Peru, Indonesia, as well as in Malaysia.

EU biofuel target: Rethinking underway

Last Friday, a group of 17 NGOs - including Oxfam, Brot für die Welt (‘Bread for the World’) and Friends of the Earth - sent a letter to EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, asking him to introduce much tougher standards for biofuel production or give up mandatory transport biofuel targets altogether. They argued that the existing draft legislation does not provide protection for important ecosystems, such as savannas or permanent grasslands "that may be threatened by expanding agriculture to meet the EU's biofuel target." "Destruction of these carbon sinks would lead to large emissions of carbon into the atmosphere, thereby reducing or neutralising the benefits from growing biofuels. Neither does the draft text provide any safeguards to protect water and soil resources," they said in a statement. They also noted that "large scale biofuel production can cause negative indirect or knock-on impacts such as increasing food and feed prices and increasing water scarcity which would lead to negative impacts on the world's poor," in line with earlier studies by a number of experts on the issue.

In reaction, EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas suggested the pending guidelines should be altered, saying it would be better to miss the biofuels target than to hurt the poor or damage the environment. "We have seen that the environmental problems caused by biofuels and also the social problems are bigger than we thought they were. So we have to move very carefully," Mr Dimas told the BBC. "We have to have criteria for sustainability, including social and environmental issues, because there are some benefits from biofuels," he added.

Last September, the EU's plan to boost the use of biofuels as part of wider plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions received a serious blow from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), grouping the world's 30 most developed countries. The Paris-based body argues that state subsidies for biofuels could lead to food price hikes and damage to forests and natural habitats while its impact in terms of the fight against climate change may only be limited.

'Sustainable palm oil' advert false, says watchdog

Friends of the Earth Europe has welcomed a ruling on 9 January by the UK advertising watchdog that describing palm oil as "sustainably produced" is false advertising. The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling followed a Friends of the Earth Europe complaint against an advert by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. The advert, which appeared on the TV channel BBC World in the summer of 2007, was deemed to have used highly misleading wording and imagery. Footage of a palm oil plantation was interspersed with shots of pristine rainforest, and accompanied with claims that palm oil is "a gift from nature, a gift for life", that "its trees help our planet breathe", and declaring that Malaysian palm oil has been "sustainably produced since 1917". Friends of the Earth Europe complained that the statement "sustainably produced since 1917" is untrue: most palm oil is produced in a way that is not at all socially or environmentally sustainable.

The campaigning group also protested that the advert as a whole was misleading because it implied that palm oil production benefits the environment. Research shows that 86% of all deforestation in Malaysia between 1995 and 2000 was attributed to palm oil development, threatening species such as the orangutan and the proboscis monkey as well as causing social problems for the people who live or depend on the forests. The draining and deforesting of weatlands in South-East Asia, predominantly to make way for palm plantations, releases huge amounts of soil carbon into the atmosphere, accounting for a massive 8% of global annual CO2 emissions.

The ASA fully upheld Friends of the Earth Europe's complaints and condemned the statements for implying universal acceptance that palm oil is being sustainably produced. The watchdog ruled that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council had not provided the necessary evidence to back up such statements. The ASA also concluded that the adverts were misleading, "because there was not a consensus that there was a net benefit to the environment from Malaysia's palm oil plantations" and said that this advert should not be broadcast again.

European Heads of State agreed in March 2007 that by 2020, 10% of transport fuels in Europe should consist of plant-based agrofuels like palm oil. In addition, palm oil is being imported to fuel power stations in the EU. To meet growing international demand for palm oil, Indonesia and Malaysia plan to double their oil palm plantations area to 18-22 million hectares, an area more than five times the size of the Netherlands. A recent study by Friends of the Earth showed that there are grave environmental and social problems on palm oil plantations.

Leaked draft law exposes weak EU standards for agrofuels

A leaked copy of a new draft law to regulate the use of agrofuels (biofuels) in Europe reveals that the EU will fail to protect the environment and the world's poor, warned Friends of the Earth Europe. The proposed Renewables Directive is due to be launched early in 2008. The Directive will introduce into EU law a mandatory target that all fuels for transport contain at least 10% agrofuels by 2020, and sets out a plan on how to achieve this "sustainably". Friends of the Earth Europe criticises the draft Directive as it:

* Fails to acknowledge the growing international concerns about the impact of agrofuels on the environment and food security and presses on with a mandatory target.
* Does not sufficiently address the knock-on effect of rising food prices.
* Will not prevent agrofuel production from pushing other farming activities (e.g. cattle ranching or other crops) into rainforests or other important eco-systems. The Commission proposes to just monitor the situation.
* Provides no criteria to protect people in developing countries from the negative impacts of agrofuel production. Land disputes, forced evictions, human rights abuses and poor working conditions occur frequently in many countries producing crops for Europe.
* Introduces only limited "sustainability criteria" aimed at preventing deforestation and damage to wetlands but ignores other important ecosytems such as threatened biodiversity-rich savannahs (for example, the Brazilian Cerrado). The criteria are only applicable to crops used as fuels in transport but not for the same fuels used to produce electricity.
* Prevents EU member states from introducing stronger criteria at a national level.

The European Commission is expected to define the greenhouse gas savings that an agrofuel would have to meet - compared to fossil-based fuels - in order to be supported by the EU. However the leaked draft is still missing this figure, indicating continued internal disagreement within the Commission.