Biofuels: climate change nightmare? What can we do?

WWF, the RSPB, Friends of the Earth, enoughsenough.org and Greenpeace placed an advert in several of today's papers (View the advert) warning the government about the environmental risks of biofuels as an alternative to petrol and diesel.

This is a welcomed action. I, like many in the Green party, have for some time had concerns that we are too readily pushing biofuels without looking at the implications of this - such a move damages the potential good that biofuels can offer. Indeed I've been meaning to do a blog item for ages - hope this is not too rushed - it draws heavily on the Greenpeace campaign literature and various other sources.

The government recently announced a consultation on its draft Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation - it closes on 17th May and there are details below about how you can submit your commnets. The RTFO will basically mean that a certain percentage of all fuel must come from biofuels.

The government’s transport strategy now at least acknowledges that CO2 emissions are a real problem, but rather than reducing traffic growth, and investing in the alternatives, the government wants to rely on techno-fixes like biofuels. These, as the advert today highlights, come with many environmental and social impacts.

Biofuels such as ethanol (which is a petrol replacement that Brazil is doing much to champion) and biodiesel can indeed have advantages over more traditional fuel sources. Made from processed agricultural crops such as sugar cane and oil palm - burning biofuels only releases the carbon dioxide those plants absorbed during their lifecycle, not massive quantities of compressed, fossilised carbon that has been locked out of the carbon cycle for millions of years. So they could form part of the solution to climate change, at least if it doesn't take a huge amount of energy to actually make them which is sometimes the case.

The battle between cars and people

As George Monbiot has been pointing out for several years (see here, here and, more recently, here), if their production isn't properly monitored and controlled, it could spell disaster for rainforests, our own food and water supplies and even climate change. Most of the crops are grown in tropical areas, sometimes cleared rainforest. So instead of growing food for themselves, poorer countries will grow crops to keep our cars on the road, with food prices pushed up as a result (see article here re rising grain prices). See Green party concerns here re oil and food security.

Crops need to be grown somewhere: there's a finite amount of arable land on the planet and most, if not all, of that is already being used to feed the 6 billion plus (and rising) population. Monbiot points out that if we rely on crops for our fuel supplies, it will "set up a competition for food between cars and people" and that crop prices are already rising as a result.

"As food becomes more and more expensive, you can bet it won't be those sitting behind the wheel of a 4x4 going hungry."
Greenpeace

With prices for biofuel crops rising ever higher as demand increases, the temptation to open up new areas of arable land is just too great. Illegal timber isn't the only reason the rainforests of south-east Asia are being torn down, and in Indonesia vast areas that were once virgin forest are being replanted with palms, the oil from which goes into a multitude of supermarket products and, increasingly, biofuels. With species such as orang-utans already highly endangered, the expansion of oil palm plantations into their remaining habitat could be the final straw.

Deforestation means more climate change

There are also impacts on climate change: as the forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into CO2. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces – so palm oil is ten times worse than petrol! Read more in an excellent Guardian article re Palm oil here.

The link between deforestation and accelerated climate change is well-established, not least in the Stern Review which said that 18 per cent of emissions are as a result of forest destruction. Another fact that I saw is that biodiesel from soya grown on deforested land would take 200 years before it could be considered 'carbon neutral'.

But to even attempt to meet the world's current fuel demands, colossal tracts of land would need to be turned over to biofuel production so the irony is that instead of reducing emissions, this supposedly 'green' alternative could actually be increasing them by an order of magnitude.

How come then biofuels are being presented as the ‘green’ alternative? Sadly it seems that the government can claim to be tackling climate change rather than cut its road-building programme. Interestingly our local Conservative candidates attempts to paint their party green consist of planting trees and promoting biofuels when what we need is for the Tories to give up their road building plans, aviation expansion and more! Techo-fixes have their place but more is needed.

GM biofuels?

Research into biofuels based on cellulose from trees or crop wastes uses genetically modified (GM) bacteria and enzymes to break down plant waste and convert it to biofuels. Other GM research seeks biofuel crops which grow faster. High-yield GM biofuels crops also require large land areas, putting pressure on natural vegetation or displacing food crops. Shared concerns, as with food crops, include the impact of GM organisms on human health and the environment, such as the risk of genetic pollution. The risks are considerable and there are still no laws and controls in place to track any GM organisms used to produce biofuels. See more re GM biofuels here.

Situation in Europe

In March 2007, the European Council agreed a binding minimum level for biofuels in the transport sector of 5.7 percent by 2010 and 10 percent of vehicle fuel by 2020. This was opposed by Green MEPs because of the concerns of what it will lead to. It was interesting to read that The Daily Telegraph reports (27 April) that the European Commission now admits that their recent EU biofuel targets, which aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions, may have the unintended consequence of speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands in South-East Asia – a process which would increase the rate of global warming.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said, ''No mandatory certification exists at present that will guarantee that tropical rainforests or peatlands in South-East Asia are not destroyed for the production of palm oil." He went on to say that, without such certification, EU targets "would supplement the pressure caused by growth in palm oil use and would make an additional contribution to the pressure on tropical forests and peatlands"

It is also reported that US companies are exploiting a subsidy loophole with a wheeze called 'splash and dash'. This allows them to buy biodiesel in Europe, ship it to the US, splash it with petrol to qualify for the subsidy, and then ship it back to Europe for sale. 'Transporting the cargo across the Atlantic twice undermines the whole purpose of biofuels...' Read more here.

So what is the answer?

An immediate ban on all biofuels would clearly be wrong. They can offer part of the solution - an important part - but it is vital those using them learn to distinguish between the good, the bad and the ugly! Ask your supplier.

However the RTFO is illogical and not achieving sustainable outcomes at present. Two main problems:

- The standards for crop growing are not mandatory. We need strict, mandatory standards for the CO2 impact of the crop growing and the wider environmental and social impacts.

- There is no minimum threshold for biofuel content to achieve the tax break. This should be 100% (see more below).

Biofuels must not be used as a means of keeping business-as-usual. We need to be using less fuel in the first place by making our vehicles more efficient and, wherever possible, getting out of our cars and onto buses, trains, bicycles or walking.

The best answer is self-provisioning of biofuels, creating closed loops on farms and in factories through recycling waste into fuel.

We must ban imports of palm oil.

We cannot control the environmental and social impacts of biodiesel crops grown outside the EU so perhaps we should also impose a ban on imports of biodiesel from outside EU. Negative impacts can include loss of farm land to grow food, CO2 produced by burning trees to create land to plant fuel crops, and CO2 produced when the fuel is transported.

We should have no tax break for crop biodiesel from within EU (this is within UK fiscal control; banning would not be in this case). We should have no tax break for ‘blended’ biodiesel. The most popular is a 5% blend which still attracts the full 27p tax break, 95% of which is a subsidy to the mineral oil industry.

We should have biodiesel produced from recycling vegetable oil zero tax-rated, as they do in Germany.

In terms of bioethanol there is a booming market in the US including considerable speculative investment. Again, ban imports from outside EU - the crops are often produced using energy intensive farming practices there can be as little as a 15% CO2 saving.

We could have zero-rating for bioethanol made on-site by businesses using their own waste. Otherwise no tax breaks. If this becomes a business it will lead to pointless transport and extra CO2 rather than less. Or perhaps allow transport within local authority areas only?

Drive easy!

Many hope that 5% emissions can be saved by biofuels by 2010 - if they really were carbon neutral. Yet a much quicker approach has already been called for in this blog and worth mentioning again - see my blog entry for 29th March - a positive action with lots of benefits - less emissions, saves money and is safer and more pleasant - read that entry on smarter driving tips - the Department for Transport itself states that CO2 emissions could be reduced by 8 per cent if all drivers in the UK followed the tips! Loads more could be saved by reducing speed limits.

Respond to the Government's consultation

The government is asking for people's views about biofuels so we all have a chance to influence what goes into the Draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order (basically the UK's own 'biofuel directive'). You can find the full consultation text here:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/draftrtfo/

Tell the Government we need strict and compulsory controls to make sure they really are green fuels. Send your own response to:
rtfo.consultation@dft.gsi.gov.uk

Or send an email via Greenpeace to the transport minister, Stephen Ladyman, telling him that we need for rigorous controls on biofuels. Otherwise the green dream really will become a nightmare.