![Page 1: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and
environment
Food
Commun
ities
BiodiversityClimate
AgrofuelImpacts
www.biofuelwatch.org.ukAlmuth ErnstingMarch 2009
![Page 2: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
AGROFUELS
December 2008: Landless and small farmers in Paraguay defend forest and farmland from being turned into anothersoya monoculture. Biofuels are driving the second waveof soya expansion across much of South America.Photo: www.lasojamata.org
![Page 3: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
EU and US biofuel polices drive monoculture expansion
EU:
5.75% indicative biofuel target by 2010. 10% mandatory ('renewable energy for transport') target agreed for 2020.
US:
Renewable Fuel Standard requires 9 billion gallons of biofuels in 2008 – and 36 billion gallons by 2022.
![Page 4: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
US / EU Biofuels for Transport Policies going off the graph
EU – 10% by 2020 (1% now)
2010 2020
US – 20% by 2020 (4% now)
![Page 5: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Heat & Power and Aviation: The new markets for agrofuels
+ When Virgin flew a plane with a 5% biofuel blend from London to Amsterdam, they had to use 150,000 coconuts.The International Air Transport Association state they want 10% of all aviation fuels to come from 'alternative fuels' – including biofuels.
+ In Germany, 1,800 CHP plants run on palm oil. The UK biofuel industry is speaking of a potential 6 billion litre home heating market for vegetable oil. Blue NG are planning the first biofuel power plants in this country.
![Page 6: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Agrofuels are accelerating climate change
Logging of Cote d'Ivoire's lastlarge ancient forest, Tanoe, forpalm oilwww.manifeste-fmt.org/tsf_danger.php
Deforestation for soya, northern Argentina
![Page 7: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Deforestation for palm oil
Sarawak, MalaysiaFriends of the Earth Europe Papua New Guinea
ColombiaKlaus Schenck, Salva la Selga
Bugala Island, Uganda
![Page 8: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Climate change mitigation? South-east Asia's
peatlands contain up to 50 billion tonnes of carbon. This carbon will be released as the peat is drained. 45% has been drained – the rest is likely to be destroyed largely to meet global demand for biodiesel and vegetable oil for heat and power.
Peat drainage for oil palms, Sarawak,Photo www.air-co.org
![Page 9: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Peat destruction S.E. Asia
Drainage: Dry peat - oxidises and, over time, emits all its carbon as CO2. 42-50 billion tonnes of carbon stored in those peatlands. Fires: Many set by plantation companies, greatly accelerate the loss of carbon. Of the 27.1 million hectares of peatland in South-east Asia, 12 million hectares are deforested and mostly drained.
![Page 10: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Climate impact of global peatland degradation
![Page 11: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Climate change mitigation?
NASA satellite image – September 2007
According to a 2006 study by NASA scientists:
The rate of Amazon destruction correlates with the market price of soya.
2007: Soya prices rising fast, largely due to biofuel expansion
October 2007-October 2008:
Deforestation in nine Amazon states up 228%
![Page 12: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Storm clouds over the Amazon: How the forest drives rainfall
The Amazon forest recycles 70-80% of its rainfall. Large amounts of energy are released and push rain clouds across much of Latin America and the southern US. Without enough dense canopy, that whole rainfall system could collapse.
![Page 13: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Deforestation plus global warming= Amazon die-back??
www.whrc.org
![Page 14: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
European agrofuels: Worse for the climate than fossil fuels?
A new study by nobel laureate Paul Crutzen suggests thatnitrous oxide (N2O)emissions linked to fertiliser use have been greatly underestimated. N2O isalmost 300 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2. Withthe new figures, biofuels from maize and rapeseed oil are worse for the climate than fossilfuels.
![Page 15: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Indirect impacts – Do UK grown biofuel crops drive rainforest
destruction
Using land or crops for agrofuels rather than food means that somewhere else, land will be converted to grow food.
Example: According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Europe's food and cosmetics industries are importing far more palm oil because most rapeseed oil is used for biodiesel. This is one of the main cause of palm oil expansion.
Tropical forests are the main agricultural frontier today.
![Page 16: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Europe's biodiversity sacrificed for agrofuels
“We are witnessing unprecedented speciesloss on German farmlands”, Frank Neuschulz,conservation expert.The agrofuel industry successfully lobbiedfor set-asides to be abolished without anyreplacement. Birds, insects, wildflowersand other species are being wiped out across Europe as a reult.
![Page 17: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Photo: http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Brazil/brazil.htm
Agrofuel expansion = Loss of land rights and food sovereignty
Eviction of 120 fanilies of small farmers for sugar cane ethanol in Brazil.
Similar evictions are common across acrossmuch of Africa, Asia andLatin America.
![Page 18: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
The human cost of ethanol
Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol is considered to be the most 'efficient' and cheapest of all biofuels.
This is to large part due to appallingworking conditions, low wages and,in some cases, slavery and childlabour.
The pictures show the poverty in which the families of cane-cuttershave to live, and working conditionson a sugar estate.
Photos:Clemens Hoegens
![Page 19: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Agrofuel expansion and human rights: The Indonesian example
In West Kalimantan (Indonesia) alone, 5 million indigenous people are likely to be displaced by agrofuel expansion
(Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
Protests against destruction of forests and community lands for palm oil, pulp and timber in Sumatra
Photo by Feri Irawan, WALHI Jambi
![Page 20: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Land-grabbing for agrofuels in Ghana
Community land cleared innorthern Ghana:
A Norwegian biodieselcompany duped an illiterate chief to sign away 38,000 hectares with a thumbprint.
This particular deal hasbeen stopped – many others have not.
Photo: Rains
![Page 21: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Growing opposition
![Page 22: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Colombia: Communities reclaim their land from palm oil companies
Communities in the Bajo Atrato cut down illegal palm oil plantations to reclaim the land to which they hold legal titles. They face increasing violence from paramilitaries acting on behalf of the companies, backed by state forces. Pictures: Interfaith Commission for Justice and Peace
![Page 23: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Paraguay: Peasants mobilise against soya agribusiness –
October/November 2008
Peasants and social movements are mobilising against pesticide spraying, evictions and violence linked to the soya industry. Photos: www.lasojamata.org
![Page 24: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Are second-generation biofuels the answer?
Second generation biofuels = solid biomass (wood, straw, grasses, etc) to liquid fuel
Two pathways:- thermal conversion - bio-chemical conversion (cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol, etc)
Today, it takes more energy to produce second generation biofuels than is gained.
Nobody knows if or when there will be a technological breakthrough to make this feasible.
![Page 25: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
The risks of second-generation biofuels
+ GE microbes needed to produce cellulosic ethanol or biobutanol – What will happen when they get into ecosystems?
+ GE trees being developed specifically for second-generation agrofuels – What are the impacts for natural forests?
+ What will happen if a technology is found to turn any part of the biosphere into liquid fuel just when oil is likely to become scarce?
![Page 26: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
The next agrofuel feedstock?
Eucalyptus Plantations in Uruguay and Bahia, Brazil
![Page 27: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
Voices from the South 1
“We want food sovereignty, not biofuels…
While Europeans maintain their lifestyle based on automobile culture, the population of Southern countries will have less and less land for food crops and will loose its food sovereignty…
We are therefore appealing to the governments and people of the European Union countries to seek solutions that do not worsen the already dramatic social and environmental situation of the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”
Declaration by five large Latin American NGO networks, January 2006
![Page 28: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
Voices from the South 2
“These trends will put serious pressure on Africancommunities to change the crops they grow, their access to land, food and forests, while our wilderness and forest areas are sacrificed.If Africa is to attempt to meet the vast energy requirements of the UK and the rest of the EU, then these impacts will be enormous.”
From a submission to the UK Governmnent by NGOs from Kenya, Benin, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania
![Page 29: Agrofuels – The costs to climate, people and environment Food Communities Biodiversity Climate Agrofuel Impacts Almuth Ernsting](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062322/56649ebd5503460f94bc700f/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
Calls for an immediate agrofuel moratorium
More than 200 NGO’s calling for an EU agrofuel moratorium
Similar moratorium calls for Africa, US, Australia, Paraguqy and Argentina
Via Campesina call for a 5-year moratorium Environmental Audit Committee calls for
moratorium on agrofuel targets