Biofueling Poverty?

from Wired

By Chuck Squatriglia

A requirement by the European Union that biofuel meet 10 percent of member states' fuel needs by 2020 could mean disaster for the world's poor as suppliers rush to meet demand, one of the world's leading aid agencies warned today.

The only way the EU will be able to meet that target, Oxfam International notes, is to import biofuels refined from sugar cane and palm oil produced in developing nations. While that could ease poverty by creating more agricultural jobs, the agency said, it is more likely to result in people being pushed from their land and crops like corn and soybeans being used for fuel instead of food.

"In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled," Robert Bailey, an Oxfam policy advisor, said in a statement. "The EU proposals as they stand will exacerbate the problem. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries should bear the cost of questionable attempts to cut emissions in Europe."


Find out what the EU says after the jump...

The 27 member states of the EU insist that the 10 percent target must be reached in a sustainable manner, but Oxfam says there are no standards dictating the social or economic impact of the policy and no safeguards to ensure that any standards that might be forthcoming will be enforced.

To ensure the world's poor are not harmed by the policy, Oxfam has suggested the EU conduct annual checks on the environmental and social impacts of the policy, and change the 10 percent goal biofuel production is proving harmful.

EU officials said they are drawing up economic, social and environmental standards to ensure its green fuel plan does not harm fuel producing nations. To meet the 10 percent benchmark, the European Commission has said, 20 percent of the EU's biofuel production will come from imported crops.

It is a pressing issue, Oxfam said, because evidence suggests biofuel crops could be growing on as much as 2.1 million square miles -- an area more than 10 times the size of France -- in the developing world within 20 years. As we reported earlier this week, the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment says Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Uruguay and Ghana are poised to become the world leaders in biofuel production. And the United Nations estimates that 60 million people worldwide face the threat of being moved aside to make way for biofuel production.

Jean Ziegler, the U.N.'s independent expert on the right to food, recently called for a five-year moratorium on biofuels, saying, "It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel." He argued converting crops to fuel is driving up food costs and poor nations could become unable to feed their people.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization subsequently called Ziegler's comments "regrettable." And President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil has urged African leaders to "join the biofuel revolution" and strengthen the world's poorest economies while easing global climate change.