Glos biofuel protests at Tesco

On Saturday in Cheltenham campaigners were asking Tesco to stop investing in Greenergy, to come clean about the origin of their biofuels and to stop selling fuels linked to environmental harm and human rights abuses (see photo).

At Stroud Tescos there will be a protest this coming weekend with at least one gorilla suited campaigner. While tomorrow night you can learn more seeing a film at 7:30pm, "Lost in Palm
Oil" showing the effect that EU demand for biofuels is having on the rainforest in Indonesia , followed by a presentation by Biofuelwatch. At the Cheltenham Centre for Change, 30 St Georges Place , Cheltenham GL50 3JZ . Contact Vision 21 on 01242 224321.

Using recycled oils - chip fat and the like is great stuff - even some locally produced sustainable biofuels are OK but internationally biofuels are rapidly threatening our food supply. George
Bush’s rush to fuel cars with ethanol from corn raised the price of the crop as we've noted already on this blog. Corn is a staple food for Mexicans - think tortillas - yum - and price rises can mean that the poor go hungry. George’s decision has already led to 70,000 Mexicans taking to the streets to protest rising prices. This is the cost of using land for feeding cars instead of feeding people. In the UK recent price rises of fundamentals like bread may also be partially attributed to food crops being used for fuel - see article here on this issue from Lester Brown.

Rainforests are being burnt down to make way for vast oil palm plantations. The indigenous former residents of the forest report gross human rights abuses as they are displaced from their land. Biofuels have been marketed as a way of cutting CO2 emissions from transport. However a study by Nobel Prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen has shown that growing and manufacturing rapeseed biodiesel produces emissions up to 70% higher than its oil based counterpart. Palm oil grown on Indonesian peatland rainforest can cause a staggering 36 times more emissions than its fossil fuel equivalent.

The mad burghers of Brussels (the EU) have gifted us the European Biofuels Directive - despite Green MEP's opposition - this has led the UK to introduce the 'Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation' (RTFO) - ie the inclusion of a proportion of biofuel in diesel and petrol compulsory. So, short of selling their vehicles and avoiding all public transport people will have no choice but to use this unsustainable product.

Tesco have been particularly keen to embrace biofuels above and beyond the requirements of the RTFO. Tesco has sold biofuel since 2003 and were the first major retailer to bring biodiesel to drivers around the UK with a national roll-out in April 2004. Since May 2005, Tesco have been selling a 5% bioethanol blend in unleaded petrol at 185 petrol stations. The supermarket giant sources its biofuels from Greenergy BioFuels Lts and holds a 25% steak in the company. Greenergy is buisily building a new refinery and they openly state that they use sugar cane and soya, crops typically grown in Brazil . They also purchase palm oil, probably sourced from countries such as Indonesia and Colombia . Tescos website says: “We are already the UK market leader in biofuels and during 2007 we aim to double the proportion we sell.”

Hardly a boast to be proud of.

Anyway some good news from the EU is that they are waking up to what Green MEPs have been trying to tell them - Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South East, has urged the EU’s
Environment Commissioner to make radical changes to the EU’s policy on biofuel
after he admitted that he had largely underestimated the potentially damaging consequences of its production.

In a dramatic change of heart, Commissioner Stavros Dimas backtracked on his previous commitment to the target set by an EU directive which aims to ensure that 10% of road fuels in Europe come from biofuel energy by 2020. However, while Commissioner Dimas stated that it would be better to miss the biofuels target than risk causing irreparable damage to the environment and to affected communities, he refused to lower the target.

Dr Lucas said: “Commissioner Dimas’ contradictory statement clearly demonstrates the EU’s mishandling of biofuel policy. It not only fails to address the gravity of the problems surrounding biofuel production – it also makes a mockery of the EU’s legislative processes by dismissing its own targets as irrelevant. While I welcome the admission that large scale monoculture biofuel is absolutely not the transport industry’s golden ticket in the battle against climate change, it comes too late in the day to prevent the industry from jumping on the biofuels bandwagon. EU policy on biofuel up till now has been misguided at best, and only now does Commisioner Dimas appear to comprehend the stark reality of a mass plant-based energy drive. I wrote to the Commission more than a year ago to raise concerns over the direction of EU policy, urging it to further consider the environmental and social consequences of biofuel production in the developing world. Large-scale generation of biofuels fails to deliver the environmental guarantees we need at home and risks degrading the land in the South which many rely upon for food.”

While testimonies continue to flood in from the parts of the developing world negatively affected by the biofuels industry, a Royal Society report, ‘Sustainable Biofuels’, published last week further hammers home the Green message calling for government regulations to prevent biofuels from harming the natural world and its people. Dr Lucas commenting on the report said: “The Royal Society report gives more weight to increasingly hard-hitting evidence showing that mass biofuels do not provide a sustainable green alternative to fossil fuels, and can in many cases have a severely detrimental effect on local eco-systems. A letter to the European Commission from several Latin American NGOs last year warned that the EU’s rush to develop large scale monoculture biofuel plantations was leading to massive exploitation of entire populations, as well as a plundering of their natural resources. It also effectively gives the green light to biofuel developers to encroach on land which would otherwise be used by local people to grow food. Across Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, monoculture soybean plantations have been the principal cause of large swathes of the rainforest. The widespread production of sugar cane, ethanol and palm oil in the South has also caused outrage amongst local people. Furthermore, agro toxic chemicals used in these plantations are seriously harming the health of affected populations. I call on Commissioner Dimas to urgently rethink the EU’s commitment to its current biofuel policy and not to pass into law the targets which he now admits cannot be achieved sustainably. The EU should actively seek to replace it with a less harmful, more sustainable and more environmentally beneficial alternative.”

All this comes as there is news that the Papua New Guinea Government have decided to shelve plans that would have seen huge areas of rainforest on Woodlark Island logged for oil palm development.

Dr. Derek Wall. one of the Green party's Principal Speakers said: "Agrofuels are a Trojan Horse in the battle against climate change. Some types of biodiesel can actually produce up to 36 times the carbon emissions of ordinary fossil diesel. On top of the destruction of rain forests and ecosystems, agrofuels are precipitating a human rights problem of epic proportions as agrofuel speculators are seizing arable land as well as evicting indigenous peoples from their forest homes - an anticipated 60 million people. This is often a matter of life and death for the world's poorest people, and corporate large scale biofuel investment is causing it."