http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL3027453120080630?sp=true
France says EU may need to reconsider biofuel goal
Mon Jun 30, 2008
Reporting by Paul Taylor, writing by Pete Harrison
PARIS (Reuters) - The European Union may have to reconsider its target of getting 10 percent of transport fuel from renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020, or extend the deadline, incoming EU president France said on Monday.
Biofuel use is soaring as developed countries try to curb dependence on imported oil and cut emissions of carbon dioxide, but critics say the industry has encouraged deforestation and pushed up food prices by competing for grain.
The EU's target, which is intended to spur investment, has been a particular focus of criticism.
"On biofuels, we do not rule out in the long-run reconsidering the target, but that's not the issue now," French secretary of state for ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told visiting EU reporters.
She said the EU approach of setting a quota target was "probably a mistake", and it would be better to set strict environmental and social criteria for biofuels and then see what level of use was viable.
Those criteria would have to include measures to ensure biofuels do not displace food-producing crops, she said.
"Probably we will be obliged to call into question or postpone the 10 percent objective," said Kosciusko-Morizet.
Earlier this month, Italy became the first EU member to publicly call for a review of the target.
Britain has also raised concerns, and this week its government will receive a long-awaited report on the impact of its targets for biofuels.
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has said the EU target must be conditional on rigorously applied sustainability criteria.
[THE EU SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON ECONOMIC COST-BENEFIT, not SUSTAINABILITY].
Efforts towards a sustainable market for biofuels are being closely watched by producers such as Brazil, which hope the EU's huge market will create the critical mass to bring biofuels into the global mainstream.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://euobserver.com/9/26419
EU biofuels target 'probably a mistake,' France says
By LEIGH PHILLIPS
EU Observer
June 30, 2008
The noose is steadily tightening around the neck of EU biofuels targets, with France on Monday (30 June) saying that the EU's 10 percent biofuels target may have to be reconsidered, in the latest attack on the renewable energy drive.
"Probably we will be obliged to call into question or postpone the 10 percent objective," said French ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet speaking to reporters in Paris, according to the Reuters news agency.
The renewable energy source has come under attack from all quarters.
She added that developing a target for the controversial fuel source was "probably a mistake" and that the EU had proposed things the wrong way round: setting environmental and social criteria for the production of biofuels should have been developed first and then any target should have been drafted to match that. [???]
[PERHAPS, NO TARGET SHOULD HAVE BEEN SET AT ALL UNTIL STUDIES & SIMULATIONS WERE PERFORMED EVALUATED THE PROBABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC-ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES OF VARIOUS TARGET SCENARIOS]
The EU in 2007 agreed that 10 percent of all transport fuel should come form renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020 as part of a wider overhaul of its energy sector. "On biofuels, we do not rule out in the long-run reconsidering the target," Ms Kosciusko-Morizet said.
With France taking over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Tuesday (1 July), the statement carries added weight, and follows on from a call from Italy earlier in the month for the bloc to review the target.
"We took with too much haste the decision on an objective that is not reachable," said Italian economic development minister Claudio Scajola in early June.
The UK as well is expected to shortly adapt its position on biofuels with the expected release this week of the Gallagher Report, a review of Britain's biofuels policies.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the working group set up by the European Commission and EU member states to consider how to develop environmental and social criteria on biofuel production and imports is close to agreement on a set of standards.
Quoting the Slovenian diplomat appointed to chair the group's discussions, Miran Kresal, the news agency says the group is likely to include language preventing the use of biofuels grown in habitats of endangered species, or biodiverse savannahs and grasslands, as well as land whose use has resulted in significant net emissions of carbon dioxide.
Legally binding labour standards were ruled out by the group due to concerns that such a move would not pass muster with the World Trade Organisation. Instead, the group will be looking to task the European Commission with the job of strict monitoring of social standards.
[THIS IS ANOTHER WAY IN WHICH THE EU COMMISSION MAY PARTAKE IN 'SOCIAL BLACKLISTING' OF THOSE COMPANIES THAT DO NOT COMPLY WITH EU CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MANDATES IMPOSED, VERIFIED AND AUDITED BY EU-FUNDED NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS.]
The key concern of environmentalists - the amount of CO2 emitted – who in the last year have moved from being supporters of biofuels to campaigning against their use, remains a source of contention within the working group, however.
Biofuels and food prices
The group has not developed any criteria relating to the possible effect of biofuels on food prices.
While the European Commission has repeatedly argued biofuels policies have had a negligible impact on food costs, the UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.
The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, a figure backed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The World Bank, however, says that biofuels have contributed to 65 percent of the price rises.
Dragan Barbutovski, a spokesperson for the Slovenian presidency of the EU, told EUobserver "The working group was set up long before the food crisis was high on the EU's agenda."
"As such it only ever had a mandate to assess potential sustainability criteria for the fuel quality directive and the renewable energy directive," he added.
Showing posts with label irrational ethanol exhuberance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label irrational ethanol exhuberance. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
US Congress Must Pay Close Attention: EU Commission President Called Upon to Reverse Flawed Brussels Biofuel Policies Causing High Prices & Hunger
Dear Dr. Kogan,
Using crops to make biofuels is contributing to the global food crisis. This statement is made in a letter dated June 2, 2008 to the European Commission and EU Heads of State urging them to abandon the proposed 10 per cent target for the use of biofuels in transport and to dismantle associated support measures.
The co-signing organisations include: Friend of the Earth Europe, Oxfam International, World Vision International, Bread for the World, CARE International, Cordaid, FIAN International, MISEREOR, Natuur en Milieu, Practical Action, SWISSAID, Save Our Borneo, AEFJN (Africa- Europe Faith & Justice Network), Agrarbuendnis Oesterreich, Both ENDS, Climate Alliance, CORE (Centre for Organisation Research & Education), Corporate Europe Observatory, Down to Earth - the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia (UK), Fair-fish, FERN, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, GM-Free Ireland Network, Global Forest Coalition, KoBra (Kooperation Brasilien), Nature Alert (UK), The Centre for Orangutan Protection (Indonesia), Plataforma Transgenicos (Pt), Pro REGENWALD, Quercus, Rettet den Regenwald.
The co-signing organizations are critical of the stance of the European Commission for denying that the EU's continuing support for biofuels is contributing to food price rises and food shortages around the world. The co-signing organizations are writing to outline their "concerns around the role that increasing demand for biofuels is playing in this situation and to call on the European Union to drop the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target." These co-signing organizations stated that:
- "The European’s Commission’s own science and environmental agencies have called into question current biofuels policy. In addition, a growing body of scientific research shows that biofuels will not help to meet the EU’s objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
- "[T]he European Commission has estimated conservatively that the 10 per cent target will drive up cereal prices by only 3 to 6 per cent..." However, "separate analysis suggests that this could translate to an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people than would otherwise have been the case."
- "[T]he IMF has commented that increasing demand for biofuels explains ’20 to 30 per cent’ of recent food price increases. This is corroborated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) which puts the contribution of biofuels to the crisis at 30 per cent."Please find attached the full document.
This document can be obtained from: http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/documents/Letter_food_prices_02June08.pdf
Sorin Straja
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
José Manuel Barroso
President of the European commission
1049 Brussels, Belgium
Copy: EU Heads of State
2 June 2008
Dear President Barroso
As you are aware, global food prices have risen sharply in the past three years – the World Bank estimates by 83 per centi. For the World’s poor, who typically spend 50-80 per cent of their income on food, this has proven devastating. Riots have broken out in numerous poor countries as millions of people have seen the price of food spiral out of their reachii. The World Bank has estimated that already 100 million people have been pushed into poverty as a resultiii, undermining already shaky progress towards the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to which the European Union has made repeated commitments.
Contrary to what many seem to imagine, it is not just the urban poor that are being affected – the majority of poor rural households are also net consumers of food and so suffering the same fate. We are writing to outline our concerns around the role that increasing demand for biofuels is playing in this situation and to call on the European Union to drop the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target.
As you are also aware, the reasons for these price rises are numerous and complex. They include rising demand for meat and dairy foods in emerging economies; adverse weather events and poor harvests, most notably for wheat; and higher energy costs which translate to higher costs of production and transport. We note with alarm however the repeated refusal of the European Commission to acknowledge its own role, through the promotion of biofuels, in the crisis. This is
despite a clear consensus among prominent economists and international organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the OECD, the World Food Programme, and the Food and Agriculture Organization, that increasing demand for biofuels is an important contributory factor. For your information, we attach as an appendix a summary of recent commentary to this effect.
According to the IMF, “rising biofuel production in the United States and the European Union has boosted demand for corn, rapeseed oil and other grains and edible oils. Although biofuels account for only 1.5 per cent of the global liquid fuels supply, they account for almost half the increase in consumption of major food crops in 2006-07.”iv In a recent paper, the OECD concluded that between 2005 and 2007, “nearly 60 per cent of the increase in use of both cereals and vegetable oil was due to higher use in the biofuels industry.”v As a result, the IMF has commented that increasing demand for biofuels explains ’20 to 30 per cent’ of recent food price increasesvi. This is corroborated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) which puts the contribution of biofuels to the crisis at 30 per centvii.
This is not only the United States. The EU is already the World’s biggest producer and consumer of biodiesel, and its contribution to the food crisis is set to increase under current proposals to take biofuel consumption from under 2 per cent of transport fuel needs today, to at least 10 per cent by 2020. The Joint Research Centre has estimated that meeting this target would require 19 per cent of world vegetable oil productionviii. IFPRI has estimated that by 2020 existing plans for biofuel expansion will have pushed the price of edible oils up by 18 per cent, and corn by 26 per cent, with direct impacts upon hunger, most notably in Africaix. The OECD estimates that under current policies – primarily those of the US and EU – demand for cereal feedstocks will double by 2017, and that biofuels will account for over a third of the growth in vegetable oil consumption in the same period. For its part, the European Commission has estimated conservatively that the 10 per cent target will drive up cereal prices by only 3 to 6 per cent – separate analysis suggests that this could translate to an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people than would otherwise have been the casex.
In the meantime, the EU continues to heavily subsidise biofuels, the net effect of which is to incentivise the diversion of food and agricultural land into fuel production. IFPRI has commented that “subsidies for biofuels that use agricultural production resources are extremely anti-poor because they act as a tax on basic food, which represents a large share of poor people’s consumption expenditures and becomes even more costly as prices increase.”xi By reducing access to food in poor countries, biofuel policies such as those of the EU are undermining the Right to Food, recognised within International Law, and which states are legally obliged to respect internationallyxii.
Biofuels are not a ‘scapegoat’ for the food crisis. We acknowledge that a number of
factors are having a significant impact upon food prices. But, biofuels is undoubtedly a significant one. More importantly, it is the one factor that EU policymakers can do something about – changing global dietary patterns, the oil price, and the weather are all outside the scope of European policymaking. Biofuel demand is not. Analysis by IFPRI shows that an immediate global moratorium on biofuels would translate to rapid and significant reductions in the price of foodxiii.
The European’s Commission’s own science and environmental agencies have called into question current biofuels policy. In addition, a growing body of scientific research shows that biofuels will not help to meet the EU’s objective of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
In light of this, we call on the European Union to act decisively to mitigate the food crisis by dropping the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target and dismantling associated biofuel support measures. To continue the current pursuit of biofuels in the face of the credible, impartial and growing opinion that this is exacerbating the food crisis would be wholly unacceptable.
Yours faithfully
Christine Fouarge
Policy Officer
AEFJN (Africa- Europe Faith & Justice Network)
Elisabeth Baumhoefer
Speaker
Agrarbuendnis Oesterreich
Danielle Hirsch
Director
Both ENDS - The Netherlands
Ms Danuta Sacher
Head of Department Policy and Campaigns
Bread for the World
Dr. Robert Glasser
Secretary General
CARE International
Thomas Brose
Director
Climate Alliance
Marjolein Dubbers
Manager Sector Entrepreneurship
Cordaid - Netherlands
Dr D Roy Laifungbam
Director
CORE (Centre for Organisation Research & Education)
Nina Holland
Corporate Europe Observatory
Carolyn Marr
Co-ordinator
Down to Earth - the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia (UK)
Heinzpeter Studer
Director
Fair-fish
Veerle Dossche
Bio-energy Campaigner
FERN
Dr. Flavio Luiz Schieck Valente
Secretary General
FIAN International
Magda Stoczkiewicz
Director
Friends of the Earth Europe
Ms. Meenakshi Raman
Honorary Secretary
Sahabat Alam Malaysia / Friends of the Earth Malaysia
Michael O’Callaghan
Co-ordinator
GM-Free Ireland Network
Simone Lovera
Managing Coordinator
Global Forest Coalition
Christian Russau
Member of Directory Board
KoBra (Kooperation Brasilien)
Dr. Martin Bröckelmann-Simon
Managing Director International Cooperation
MISEREOR (the German Catholic Bishops' Organization for Development
Cooperation)
Sean Whyte
CEO
Nature Alert (UK) and The Centre for Orangutan Protection (Indonesia)
Mirjam de Rijk
Director
Natuur en Milieu
Jeremy Hobbs
Executive Director
Oxfam International
Margarida Silva
Co-ordinator
Plataforma Transgenicos Fora, Portugal (Portuguese GM-Free Coalition)
Andrew Scott
Policy and Programmes Director
Practical Action
Hermann Edelmann
Coordinator
Pro REGENWALD
Hélder Spínola
President of the National Board
Quercus - Associação National de Conservação da Natureza
Reinhard Behrend
President
Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Nordin
Co-ordinator
Save Our Borneo
Caroline Morel
Director
SWISSAID
John Githongo
Vice President, Policy & Advocacy
World Vision International
Appendix – recent commentary on biofuels and the food crisis
“We should cut back significantly on our biofuels programmes…the biofuel impact is
greater in the US because it’s a larger programme. In Europe, it’s still a real impact
though due to two things: to a modest extent food, wheat for example, is used for
creating biofuels in Europe and that amount is to multiply considerably in the years
ahead. Secondly, land that is crop-growing land is diverted from grains to rapeseed
and other inputs for biodiesel…neither makes much sense in terms of the
environmental effect, the energy balances or the food impact.”
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University and former
Director of the Millennium Project and Special Advisor to Kofi Annan.
“Biofuels is no doubt a significant contributor [to the food crisis]. It is clearly the case
that programmes in Europe and the United States that have increased biofuel
production have contributed to the added demand for food.”
Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank
“Land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies
to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis.”
Professor Paul Krugman, Princeton University
“We need to pull [EU biofuel policy] back before it does real damage. We have
surely learnt enough about European agriculture to realise how important it is to kill
this incipient scam before we are engulfed by it.”
Professor Paul Collier, University of Oxford, and former Director of Research at the World Bank.
“[Governments need to] look more carefully at the link between the acceleration in
biofuels and food supply and give more thought to it.”
Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme.
“Our analysis suggests that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we
could expect a price decline of maize by about 20 per cent and for wheat by about 10
per cent in 2009-10. So it’s this significant.”
Joachim von Braun, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute
Notes
i ‘Rising food prices: policy options and World Bank response’, World Bank, 2008.
ii For example Guinea, Cameroon, Niger, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mexico, Burkina Faso, Philippines, Bangladesh, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia, Senegal, Yemen, Haiti, Mozambique.
iii ‘Implications of Higher Global Food Prices for Poverty in Low-Income Countries’, Policy Research Working Paper 4594, World Bank, Washington, 2008.
iv ‘World Economic Outlook 2008, IMF, April 2008.
v ‘Rising Food Prices: Causes and Consequences”, OECD, paper prepared for the DAC High Level Meeting, 20-21 May 2008.
vi Simon Johnson, Chief Economist of the IMF, speaking on The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 14th April 2008.
vii ‘Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses’, IFRPI, 2008.
viii ‘Biofuels in the European Context: Facts, Uncertainties and Recommendations’, JRC Working
Paper, 19 December 2007.
ix ‘The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, IFPRI, 2007.
x Separate analysis suggests that for every percentage point rise in the price of food from today until 2025, an extra 16 million people will be hungry in 2025 than would otherwise have been the case. Applying this to the EU’s estimates for the impact of the 10% target on cereal prices suggests the target could result in an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people. See Runge, C. and Senauer, B., ‘How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007.
xi ‘The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, IFPRI, 2007.
xii General Comment No.12, “Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights: The Right to Adequate Food”, E/C.12/1999/5, 12 May 1999, para 36 states that “states parties should take steps to respect the enjoyment of the right to food in other countries, to protect that right, to facilitate access to food and to provide the necessary aid where required.”
xiii ‘Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses’, IFRPI, 2008.
Using crops to make biofuels is contributing to the global food crisis. This statement is made in a letter dated June 2, 2008 to the European Commission and EU Heads of State urging them to abandon the proposed 10 per cent target for the use of biofuels in transport and to dismantle associated support measures.
The co-signing organisations include: Friend of the Earth Europe, Oxfam International, World Vision International, Bread for the World, CARE International, Cordaid, FIAN International, MISEREOR, Natuur en Milieu, Practical Action, SWISSAID, Save Our Borneo, AEFJN (Africa- Europe Faith & Justice Network), Agrarbuendnis Oesterreich, Both ENDS, Climate Alliance, CORE (Centre for Organisation Research & Education), Corporate Europe Observatory, Down to Earth - the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia (UK), Fair-fish, FERN, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, GM-Free Ireland Network, Global Forest Coalition, KoBra (Kooperation Brasilien), Nature Alert (UK), The Centre for Orangutan Protection (Indonesia), Plataforma Transgenicos (Pt), Pro REGENWALD, Quercus, Rettet den Regenwald.
The co-signing organizations are critical of the stance of the European Commission for denying that the EU's continuing support for biofuels is contributing to food price rises and food shortages around the world. The co-signing organizations are writing to outline their "concerns around the role that increasing demand for biofuels is playing in this situation and to call on the European Union to drop the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target." These co-signing organizations stated that:
- "The European’s Commission’s own science and environmental agencies have called into question current biofuels policy. In addition, a growing body of scientific research shows that biofuels will not help to meet the EU’s objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
- "[T]he European Commission has estimated conservatively that the 10 per cent target will drive up cereal prices by only 3 to 6 per cent..." However, "separate analysis suggests that this could translate to an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people than would otherwise have been the case."
- "[T]he IMF has commented that increasing demand for biofuels explains ’20 to 30 per cent’ of recent food price increases. This is corroborated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) which puts the contribution of biofuels to the crisis at 30 per cent."Please find attached the full document.
This document can be obtained from: http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/documents/Letter_food_prices_02June08.pdf
Sorin Straja
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
José Manuel Barroso
President of the European commission
1049 Brussels, Belgium
Copy: EU Heads of State
2 June 2008
Dear President Barroso
As you are aware, global food prices have risen sharply in the past three years – the World Bank estimates by 83 per centi. For the World’s poor, who typically spend 50-80 per cent of their income on food, this has proven devastating. Riots have broken out in numerous poor countries as millions of people have seen the price of food spiral out of their reachii. The World Bank has estimated that already 100 million people have been pushed into poverty as a resultiii, undermining already shaky progress towards the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to which the European Union has made repeated commitments.
Contrary to what many seem to imagine, it is not just the urban poor that are being affected – the majority of poor rural households are also net consumers of food and so suffering the same fate. We are writing to outline our concerns around the role that increasing demand for biofuels is playing in this situation and to call on the European Union to drop the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target.
As you are also aware, the reasons for these price rises are numerous and complex. They include rising demand for meat and dairy foods in emerging economies; adverse weather events and poor harvests, most notably for wheat; and higher energy costs which translate to higher costs of production and transport. We note with alarm however the repeated refusal of the European Commission to acknowledge its own role, through the promotion of biofuels, in the crisis. This is
despite a clear consensus among prominent economists and international organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the OECD, the World Food Programme, and the Food and Agriculture Organization, that increasing demand for biofuels is an important contributory factor. For your information, we attach as an appendix a summary of recent commentary to this effect.
According to the IMF, “rising biofuel production in the United States and the European Union has boosted demand for corn, rapeseed oil and other grains and edible oils. Although biofuels account for only 1.5 per cent of the global liquid fuels supply, they account for almost half the increase in consumption of major food crops in 2006-07.”iv In a recent paper, the OECD concluded that between 2005 and 2007, “nearly 60 per cent of the increase in use of both cereals and vegetable oil was due to higher use in the biofuels industry.”v As a result, the IMF has commented that increasing demand for biofuels explains ’20 to 30 per cent’ of recent food price increasesvi. This is corroborated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) which puts the contribution of biofuels to the crisis at 30 per centvii.
This is not only the United States. The EU is already the World’s biggest producer and consumer of biodiesel, and its contribution to the food crisis is set to increase under current proposals to take biofuel consumption from under 2 per cent of transport fuel needs today, to at least 10 per cent by 2020. The Joint Research Centre has estimated that meeting this target would require 19 per cent of world vegetable oil productionviii. IFPRI has estimated that by 2020 existing plans for biofuel expansion will have pushed the price of edible oils up by 18 per cent, and corn by 26 per cent, with direct impacts upon hunger, most notably in Africaix. The OECD estimates that under current policies – primarily those of the US and EU – demand for cereal feedstocks will double by 2017, and that biofuels will account for over a third of the growth in vegetable oil consumption in the same period. For its part, the European Commission has estimated conservatively that the 10 per cent target will drive up cereal prices by only 3 to 6 per cent – separate analysis suggests that this could translate to an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people than would otherwise have been the casex.
In the meantime, the EU continues to heavily subsidise biofuels, the net effect of which is to incentivise the diversion of food and agricultural land into fuel production. IFPRI has commented that “subsidies for biofuels that use agricultural production resources are extremely anti-poor because they act as a tax on basic food, which represents a large share of poor people’s consumption expenditures and becomes even more costly as prices increase.”xi By reducing access to food in poor countries, biofuel policies such as those of the EU are undermining the Right to Food, recognised within International Law, and which states are legally obliged to respect internationallyxii.
Biofuels are not a ‘scapegoat’ for the food crisis. We acknowledge that a number of
factors are having a significant impact upon food prices. But, biofuels is undoubtedly a significant one. More importantly, it is the one factor that EU policymakers can do something about – changing global dietary patterns, the oil price, and the weather are all outside the scope of European policymaking. Biofuel demand is not. Analysis by IFPRI shows that an immediate global moratorium on biofuels would translate to rapid and significant reductions in the price of foodxiii.
The European’s Commission’s own science and environmental agencies have called into question current biofuels policy. In addition, a growing body of scientific research shows that biofuels will not help to meet the EU’s objective of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
In light of this, we call on the European Union to act decisively to mitigate the food crisis by dropping the proposed 10 per cent biofuels target and dismantling associated biofuel support measures. To continue the current pursuit of biofuels in the face of the credible, impartial and growing opinion that this is exacerbating the food crisis would be wholly unacceptable.
Yours faithfully
Christine Fouarge
Policy Officer
AEFJN (Africa- Europe Faith & Justice Network)
Elisabeth Baumhoefer
Speaker
Agrarbuendnis Oesterreich
Danielle Hirsch
Director
Both ENDS - The Netherlands
Ms Danuta Sacher
Head of Department Policy and Campaigns
Bread for the World
Dr. Robert Glasser
Secretary General
CARE International
Thomas Brose
Director
Climate Alliance
Marjolein Dubbers
Manager Sector Entrepreneurship
Cordaid - Netherlands
Dr D Roy Laifungbam
Director
CORE (Centre for Organisation Research & Education)
Nina Holland
Corporate Europe Observatory
Carolyn Marr
Co-ordinator
Down to Earth - the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia (UK)
Heinzpeter Studer
Director
Fair-fish
Veerle Dossche
Bio-energy Campaigner
FERN
Dr. Flavio Luiz Schieck Valente
Secretary General
FIAN International
Magda Stoczkiewicz
Director
Friends of the Earth Europe
Ms. Meenakshi Raman
Honorary Secretary
Sahabat Alam Malaysia / Friends of the Earth Malaysia
Michael O’Callaghan
Co-ordinator
GM-Free Ireland Network
Simone Lovera
Managing Coordinator
Global Forest Coalition
Christian Russau
Member of Directory Board
KoBra (Kooperation Brasilien)
Dr. Martin Bröckelmann-Simon
Managing Director International Cooperation
MISEREOR (the German Catholic Bishops' Organization for Development
Cooperation)
Sean Whyte
CEO
Nature Alert (UK) and The Centre for Orangutan Protection (Indonesia)
Mirjam de Rijk
Director
Natuur en Milieu
Jeremy Hobbs
Executive Director
Oxfam International
Margarida Silva
Co-ordinator
Plataforma Transgenicos Fora, Portugal (Portuguese GM-Free Coalition)
Andrew Scott
Policy and Programmes Director
Practical Action
Hermann Edelmann
Coordinator
Pro REGENWALD
Hélder Spínola
President of the National Board
Quercus - Associação National de Conservação da Natureza
Reinhard Behrend
President
Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Nordin
Co-ordinator
Save Our Borneo
Caroline Morel
Director
SWISSAID
John Githongo
Vice President, Policy & Advocacy
World Vision International
Appendix – recent commentary on biofuels and the food crisis
“We should cut back significantly on our biofuels programmes…the biofuel impact is
greater in the US because it’s a larger programme. In Europe, it’s still a real impact
though due to two things: to a modest extent food, wheat for example, is used for
creating biofuels in Europe and that amount is to multiply considerably in the years
ahead. Secondly, land that is crop-growing land is diverted from grains to rapeseed
and other inputs for biodiesel…neither makes much sense in terms of the
environmental effect, the energy balances or the food impact.”
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University and former
Director of the Millennium Project and Special Advisor to Kofi Annan.
“Biofuels is no doubt a significant contributor [to the food crisis]. It is clearly the case
that programmes in Europe and the United States that have increased biofuel
production have contributed to the added demand for food.”
Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank
“Land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies
to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis.”
Professor Paul Krugman, Princeton University
“We need to pull [EU biofuel policy] back before it does real damage. We have
surely learnt enough about European agriculture to realise how important it is to kill
this incipient scam before we are engulfed by it.”
Professor Paul Collier, University of Oxford, and former Director of Research at the World Bank.
“[Governments need to] look more carefully at the link between the acceleration in
biofuels and food supply and give more thought to it.”
Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme.
“Our analysis suggests that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we
could expect a price decline of maize by about 20 per cent and for wheat by about 10
per cent in 2009-10. So it’s this significant.”
Joachim von Braun, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute
Notes
i ‘Rising food prices: policy options and World Bank response’, World Bank, 2008.
ii For example Guinea, Cameroon, Niger, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mexico, Burkina Faso, Philippines, Bangladesh, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia, Senegal, Yemen, Haiti, Mozambique.
iii ‘Implications of Higher Global Food Prices for Poverty in Low-Income Countries’, Policy Research Working Paper 4594, World Bank, Washington, 2008.
iv ‘World Economic Outlook 2008, IMF, April 2008.
v ‘Rising Food Prices: Causes and Consequences”, OECD, paper prepared for the DAC High Level Meeting, 20-21 May 2008.
vi Simon Johnson, Chief Economist of the IMF, speaking on The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 14th April 2008.
vii ‘Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses’, IFRPI, 2008.
viii ‘Biofuels in the European Context: Facts, Uncertainties and Recommendations’, JRC Working
Paper, 19 December 2007.
ix ‘The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, IFPRI, 2007.
x Separate analysis suggests that for every percentage point rise in the price of food from today until 2025, an extra 16 million people will be hungry in 2025 than would otherwise have been the case. Applying this to the EU’s estimates for the impact of the 10% target on cereal prices suggests the target could result in an extra 50 to 100 million hungry people. See Runge, C. and Senauer, B., ‘How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007.
xi ‘The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions”, IFPRI, 2007.
xii General Comment No.12, “Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights: The Right to Adequate Food”, E/C.12/1999/5, 12 May 1999, para 36 states that “states parties should take steps to respect the enjoyment of the right to food in other countries, to protect that right, to facilitate access to food and to provide the necessary aid where required.”
xiii ‘Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses’, IFRPI, 2008.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
US & EU Ethanol Ecstasy Accentuates Weaknesses in Food & Energy Policy Planning
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g5BBXipUNID1wgmdeVD7nyK5AKYQD90FJVOO0
US, EU asked to reconsider biofuel goals as food prices rise
By AOIFE WHITE – 19 hours ago
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — The U.S. and European Union should reconsider a shift to biofuels that has helped increase food prices worldwide by turning agricultural land over to energy crops, American economist Jeffrey Sachs said Monday.
Targets to produce more fuels that release less carbon dioxide when burned "do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition," Sachs, a special adviser to the United Nations, told reporters before he spoke to EU lawmakers at the European Parliament.
[POLICYMAKERS SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS EVENTUALITY BEFORE AGREEING TO PROMOTE 'BIO'-ETHANOL IN A 'VACUUM'. GOVERNMENTS ARE INCAPABLE OF 'PICKING WINNERS' IN 'HORSE RACES' SUCH AS THESE. THE MOST PRUDENT OPTION WOULD HAVE BEEN, AND CONTINUES TO BE: PROMOTE, THROUGH INCENTIVES, THE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & COMMERCIALIZATION OF VARIOUS ENERGY RESOURCES UNTIL A 'COMPLETE ENERGY SHIFT' CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. THIS MEANS, ALL ENERGY SOURCES REMAIN ON THE TABLE, INCLUDING OIL & CLEAN COAL, UNTIL CLEANER, ALTERNATIVE RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES ARE 'READY TO ROLL'.]
US, EU asked to reconsider biofuel goals as food prices rise
By AOIFE WHITE – 19 hours ago
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — The U.S. and European Union should reconsider a shift to biofuels that has helped increase food prices worldwide by turning agricultural land over to energy crops, American economist Jeffrey Sachs said Monday.
Targets to produce more fuels that release less carbon dioxide when burned "do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition," Sachs, a special adviser to the United Nations, told reporters before he spoke to EU lawmakers at the European Parliament.
[POLICYMAKERS SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS EVENTUALITY BEFORE AGREEING TO PROMOTE 'BIO'-ETHANOL IN A 'VACUUM'. GOVERNMENTS ARE INCAPABLE OF 'PICKING WINNERS' IN 'HORSE RACES' SUCH AS THESE. THE MOST PRUDENT OPTION WOULD HAVE BEEN, AND CONTINUES TO BE: PROMOTE, THROUGH INCENTIVES, THE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & COMMERCIALIZATION OF VARIOUS ENERGY RESOURCES UNTIL A 'COMPLETE ENERGY SHIFT' CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. THIS MEANS, ALL ENERGY SOURCES REMAIN ON THE TABLE, INCLUDING OIL & CLEAN COAL, UNTIL CLEANER, ALTERNATIVE RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES ARE 'READY TO ROLL'.]
"In the United States, as much as one-third of the maize crop this year will go to the gas tank and this is a huge blow to the world food supply, so these programs should be cut back significantly," he said.
Top international food scientists recommended last month that the use of food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, be halted, saying that would cut corn prices by 20 percent during a world food crisis.
So far, the U.S. biofuel program has had more impact on food shortages, but Europe's plans to rapidly boost biofuel output in coming years would also start to bite, Sachs said.
"Neither of them makes much sense actually in terms of the environmental effect, the energy balance, or the food impact, so I would advocate a reconsideration of both under the new market conditions," he said.
European Commission spokesman Michael Mann insisted that biofuels were not a significant factor in pushing up food prices. More important are recent poor global harvests, growing food demand in Asia and export restrictions in Ukraine and Russia, he said.
[IN OTHER WORDS, THERE ARE UNCONTROLLABLE /VARIABLE EXTERNAL, BUT PREDICTABLE FACTORS THAT, WHEN ADDED TO READILY KNOWN FACTORS, CREATED THE PRESENT DYNAMIC OF FOOD SHORTAGES (DECREASED SUPPLY) AMID INCREASING DEMAND, THUS SPARKING HIGHER FOOD PRICES.]
"In Europe, we use less than 2 percent of our cereals production for biofuels, so their contribution to higher food prices is marginal, if not nonexistent," Mann said.
to affMann said the EU did not expect replacing 10 percent of all transport fuel with biofuels by 2010 ect future food prices because Europe planned to increase the amount of land under cultivation and use crop waste, such as straw, to make some biofuel to meet the target.
But Sachs insisted that biofuels in Europe were hitting the food supply to a "modest extent" because some wheat is turned into ethanol and "land is diverted from grains to rapeseed and other inputs for biodiesel."
The U.S. ethanol industry also rejects claims that biofuels are responsible for food price increases, saying ethanol — made from wheat and sugar cane — and other biofuels account for just 4 percent of the price surge.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the figure closer to 20 percent.
Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said it was unfair to blame financial speculators for soaring prices for basic foods such as wheat and rice.
[PROFESSOR SACHS IS OFF-BASED HERE. BIO-CRAZY VENTURE CAPITALISTS HAVE BEEN PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR PUSHING NEW LAWS IN THE U.S. CONGRESS TO PROMOTE BIO-ETHANOL RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & PRODUCTION. AND, FINANCIAL SPECULATORS IN CHICAGO, NEW YORK, LONDON, ETC. HAVE CERTAINLY BEEN PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR BIDDING THE PRICE OF FOODSTUFFS UP INTO THE STRATOSPHERE.]
"The fact inventories are very low, that food supply is more stagnant compared to food demand, gives a reason for speculators to try and buy and hold grains," he said.
Underlying problems — "a tight food supply and vulnerability to climate shocks" — need long-term solutions such as boosting aid to poorer nations to help them increase food production, he said.
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