By Angela Singer
Have you noticed something new at your petrol station? It’s called biofuel. As from 10 October 2008, new legislation makes it mandatory for biofuels to be available at our gas stations.
Suppliers of petrol and diesel must meet targets for supplying biofuels: 0.53 percent of total sales in 2008, increasing to 3.40 per cent by 2012. The Government says that its biofuel legislation will save an estimated 1.08 to 1.12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere between now and 2012.
The Biofuel Bill follows the lead of most governments around the world in responding to calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as required under the Kyoto Protocol, by setting targets for biofuel use as a percentage of total gas and diesel sales. The New Zealand biofuel target is far lower than other countries; the European Union target is 10 percent biofuel by 2020, and the United States target is 20 percent.
Worldwide, biofuels are promoted as a partial answer to climate change and the fossil fuel crisis (it is estimated that within 10 years, Saudi Arabia will have used 80 percent of its oil reserves). But the case in favour of biofuel is far from cut and dried.
To understand the debate, you need to look at what biofuels are made from and where they are being produced. Any fuel manufactured from living plant or animal material or their waste products, including soya, corn, palm, animal fat, wood, animals’ excrement, is biofuel. The two most common biofuels at your petrol station are: bioethanol, used in place of petrol in cars and produced from the fermentation of sugars in carbohydrates from corn, wheat, sugarcane, wood or whey; and biodiesel, a diesel substitute produced by chemically processing the oils from soy, rapeseed, oil palm, and also algae and animal fats. The US and Brazil are the world’s largest bioethanol producers; the EU produces most of the biodiesel.
Some critics argue that the net energy benefit of biofuel production may be negative because the energy outputs are less than the fossil energy used to produce the biofuel. They also say that although biofuels may be planted on degraded land and used locally, this hasn’t stopped large tracts of rainforest and bush being destroyed to plant biofuel crops. Friends of the Earth reports that millions of acres have been cleared to plant biofuel palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia, and many species of mammals, reptiles and birds will be wiped out.
Critics also argue that monoculture plantations are not environmentally and socially sustainable. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recently warned that 60 million indigenous people worldwide face clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations. Worst affected are Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. Without their land, many people will lose their livelihoods and end up in urban slums or roam the country looking for work, sometimes on the very plantations that displaced them.
Biofuel production can also compete with food and other agricultural products for the same limited resources, leading to price rises. A recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts global food-price increases during the next decade of 20-50 percent, citing biofuels as a main driver.
The impact of biofuel production on poorer countries concerns the Rev Stuart Simpson of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Global Mission Office. “We need to consider how the production of biofuels impacts poorer nations. With the food crisis on the rise, the production of fuel from life-saving crops like corn seems an almost incredible and unbalanced move. Has saving the environment become today’s catch cry to the detriment of human wellbeing?”
Supporters of biofuels say that more-sustainable biofuel production is possible. Even recent Oxfam and Action Aid reports set out a number of ways this could be made possible. They suggest that environmental and social standards could be applied to all biofuels, regardless of where they come from. These could include the preservation of the right to food, with standards developed that are driven by people most likely to be affected, such as plantation workers, smallholders, indigenous peoples and local communities whose livelihoods are at risk. Encouragement for the development of second- and third-generation biofuels that use genuine waste products in production is also recommended.
In an address at Massey University last year, Dr Kevin Tate, who is a climate change scientist and former head of New Zealand’s biggest research programme into greenhouse gases and climate change at Landcare Research, said the biofuel sources in current use - palm, canola, maize and soya bean - are widely accepted as unsustainable when subjected to rigorous life cycle analyses. “In addition, the use of palm oil encourages deforestation of tropical rainforests, which accounts for about 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
“Before New Zealand moves to widespread adoption of biofuels, lessons can be learnt from the Northern hemisphere experience so that we avoid some of the negative aspects: for example, using food-producing land for biofuel crops and increased greenhouse gas emissions.”
Kevin said that a recent study of energy opportunities for New Zealand recommended the urgent adoption of renewable transport fuels, while adhering to carbon emissions agreements.
“We do have several natural advantages that are beginning to make this feasible, including the use of algae from nutrient-rich sewerage ponds for biodiesel.”
In October, Dev-Zone, an independent New Zealand resource centre on international development, hosted a panel discussion on biofuel in Wellington. Chaired by Tim Jones, the convenor of the Sustainable Energy Forum, a panel of experts was asked to consider whether biofuel was a climate solution or a poverty trap. Andrew Campbell of Fuel Technology Ltd spoke
on current uses of biofuel in New Zealand; and Dr Sean Weaver, senior lecturer in environmental studies at Victoria University, looked at potential overseas sources of biofuel, including the viability of monoculture coconut plantations in Vanuatu. In contrast, Sandy Gauntlett of the Global Forest Coalition spoke of the damaging effects of monoculture plantations on indigenous cultures and eco systems.
For further information about how churches are responding to complex environmental challenges, visit the resources section of our Social Justice and Advocacy website