Biofuels: Making the climate crisis worse, not better

Get your MP to sign EDM 230 for a radical reform of EU bioenergy policy and a moratorium on awarding ROCS (see below) to power stations using agrofuels.

You can write to your MP using WriteToThem.com.  Just enter your postcode and your e-mail will be sent directly to your MP.  Or you might like to write the old fashioned way - and send a letter by post. Maybe they will take more notice of that!

Friends of the Earth also have a campaign on agrofuels, specifically targeting ROC subsidies for palm oil, with signatures going to Ed Miliband. Sign the petition here. This is part of their Biofuels: The Road to Nowhere campaign.

Agrofuels don't ROC(K)! 

  Maryla Hart speaking for 'Food not Fuel'

Demonstration against renewable energy subsidies for Agrofuels

 Monday 12^th October, 6.30 pm
At DECC (Dept of Energy and Climate Change), 3 Whitehall Place, London

Called by Campaign against Climate Change, Biofuelwatch and Food not Fuel

This was a lively demonstration with a great atmosphere! Good speeches from  Kenneth Richter from Friends of the Earth, Rupert Read from the Green Party, Maryla Hart from ‘Food not Fuel’, Phil Thornhill from the ‘Campaign against Climate Change’, Amancay Colque from Coordinadora Latinoamericana. and also John Stewart from HACAN who chipped in with a few words about agrofuels as the 'long game' of the aviation industry. Also great music from, Pete, Mark et al!

Half way through there was a great moment when the Latin American contingent arrived on the last stop of their long day of actions in solidarity with indigenous people on this 'Day of Protecting Mother Earth'.

Photos from the evening are here. Earlier in the day there was a photo-op at the same place, the photos from the shoot are here. Videos are on a playlist on our YouTube channel.

So what was the demo about ? Well........

The government is using renewable energy subsidies (Renewable Obligations Certificates – or ROCs) to fund power stations that use agrofuels. 

A hat trick of victories against biofuel power plants

Portland, Dorset  - this time it was against W4G.  See more here.

Newport, South Wales -  a second landslide win! Read more here.

Southall, London - Landslide win Against Blue NG Biofuel Power Station

Campaigners from Food Not Fuel, Friends of the Earth Ealing and Biofuelwatch were amongst those celebrating a 10 to 0 win against the proposed biofuel power station in Southall. Blue NG presented bogus claims that burning vegetable oil somehow protects against climate change and makes negligible impact on Southall air quality.

More info and photos here.
 

Agrofuels as "Biomass" for electricity generation: the looming threat

There are increasingly plans to use biofuels for the purpose of electricity generation.The use of biofuels as transport fuel (see below), in line with a disastrous EU policy (see here) has already drastically increased demand with all the terrible impacts on the environment and on rising emissions that that brings with it (see below) - but now this demand is set to rise yet higher as bio/agro-fuels are used for electricity generation.

Already two electricty generating plants, using biofuel, have been planned - at Becton in North East London and the latest one at Southall in West London. In Germany there is quite a number of such plants and in almost all cases the raw material for the biofuel used is palm oil. It is the huge increase in demand for palm oil which is the biggest driver of deforestation in South East Asia, with huge consequences in terms of increased greenhouse gas emissions. There is every likelihood that this situation will be replicated in the UK : despite great quantities of greenwash that seek to project these new power stations as the cutting edge of environmental technology - no solid guarantees have been given that palm oil will not be used.

For a letter from Biofuelwatch and many other organisations condemning the use of agrofules for elctricity generation and explaining why they are far from "green" as claimed.- see here.

For more about the proposed biofuel-powered electricity generating plant at Southall see www.foodnotfuel.org.uk.

For more about Agrofuel Power plants see here.

For a factsheet on the plans of Blue-NG - the company reponsible for the Southall plan, see "Blue-NG: Opening up a new agrofuel market for power generation in the UK". For an analysis of their spin and conflicting messages see here.

AGROFUELS DRIVE DEFORESTATION DRIVES CLIMATE CHANGE

'Biofuels’ or ‘Agrofuels’ are fuels that are made from living plants (rather than the “fossilised” ones that make up oil and coal). The theory is that because these fuels absorb as much CO2 when they grow, as they emit when they are burnt, they are basically ‘carbon neutral’. Now, ‘biofuels’ made from waste materials like used chip fat are fine, but these could only ever supply a fraction of the demand if we use biofuels to replace any significant proportion of the transport fuel that now comes from fossil fuels. To do this requires growing crops for fuel (e.g. rapeseed, palm oil, soy, sugar cane or jatropha) on a massive scale (this is why we use the term “agrofuels”).

This increases the pressure on land and in places like Brazil and Indonesia this increases the pressure on the rain forest and other surviving biodiverse ecosystems. Clearance for palm oil plantations is now the biggest driver behind deforestation in Indonesia and an increase in the price of soy (caused by increased demand) is seen as the main cause of the recent huge increase in the rate of deforestation in Brazil. Even if agrofuels are produced from, say, “certifiably sustainable” rapeseed in Europe this can have knock-on effects – it means there is less rapeseed available to produce cooking oils and foodstuffs and this results in a massively increased demand for Indonesian palm oil to fill the gap.

It is often overlooked that deforestation, and land use change, is the cause of about one quarter of total global CO2 emissions. Not only that but some rainforest ecosystems, are thought to be in danger of complete collapse. The Amazon for instance has been ‘drying out’ in recent years and if the process continued vast fires could take hold and precipitate a change to a different ‘dry forest’ or savannah state. This would release vast quantities of CO2 in a ‘positive feedback’ event that could constitute a ’tipping point’ where climate change escalated completely out of control. Deforestation is the biggest driver in this process – combined of course with higher temperatures from global warming, itself exacerbated by deforestation.

Not only that but using crops for fuels means there are less available for food – the huge demand of rich countries for fuel to drive their cars around is put in direct competition with the need of people in poorer countries just to eat. Already in the past year US and EU demand for biofuels has helped to double the price of wheat and corn. There have been riots in Mexico over the rocketing price of tortillas and this could just be the start. Jean Ziegler, the 'UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food' has called it a "crime against humanity". For more on the emerging global food crisis see here and see below for a link to send an email to your MP about this issue.

There have also been a catalogue of human rights abuses associated with the expansion of agrofuels. In Argentina 200,000 rural families have already been displaced and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the 'UN Permanaent Forum on Indigenous Issues' has warned that 60 million indigenous people could become "agrofuel refugees".

Finally new ‘full cycle’ studies suggest that many biofuels actually cause more emissions than fossil fuel. This is greenhouse gas emissions directly associated with their production, not the devastating indirect, or long-term, effects referred to above. A recent study by Paul Crutzen suggests that the production of biofuel from rapeseed causes 70% more greenhouse gas emissions than those that would be caused by fossil fuels. This is mainly the nitrous oxide emissions from the fertiliser used to intensivley farm rapeseed - something overlooked in previous assessments.

So with all this damning evidence why are they going ahead with a massive expansion of agrofuels ? Well, in part at least, its because a new corporate alliance has evolved around the agrofuel boom - which includes oil companies, 'big business' and venture capitalists, car manufacturers and the biotech industry. (Car manufacturers back a "low carbon solution" that does not involve them in making drastic changes to their industry, while the biotech industry backs the genetic modification of crops to make them more suitable for biofuel production). This means there is a powerful self-interested lobby influencing all the decisions that are made.

To sum up: agrofuels drive deforestation which drives climate change. Gordon Brown is asking us to cut down our personal energy use while enacting a measure which will have the very worst direct impact on the climate crisis. In Gordon Brown’s fight against climate change its one step forward and ten steps back!

For more information on the issues raised here see www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

To keep up to date with any more events check here.

Biofuelwatch have an email alert to MPs asking them to support calls for the UK Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) and EU legislation promoting biofuels to be suspended due to the emerging global food crisis. Please click here to send your MP an email.

See what Friends of the Earth has to say about biofuels here and read a report from Friends of the Earth Europe on agrofuels here.

To email your MEP (Member of European Parliament) to ask him/her to oppose EU policies promoting agrofuels click here.

Protest against Brown on Biofuels

On Tuesday 15th April 2008 the CCC joined forces with Biofuelwatch to protest against the RTFO and the devestating impacts caused by a massive increase in biofuels. The protest, staged outside Downing Street at 6.00 pm, was the largest demonstration yet against biofuels and was widely reported on the day. Speakers at the demo included Ronnie Hall of the Global Forest Coalition, Kenneth Richter of Friends of the Earth, Pete Riley, campaign director of GM Freeze, Andrew Boswell of Biofuelwatch and Phil Thornhill of Campaign against Climate Change. Earlier in the day at 1.00 pm there was a very succesful photo-call and mini-demo outside the Department of Transport.

Photos from April 15th demos in London:

Lunchtime photo-op and mini-demo outside the Department of Transport, 1:00pm to 2:00 pm

Here we are with all our displays outside the Department of Transport at lunchtime on April 15th - and loads of press photographers have turned up.

More Photos here.

The main evening demo outside Downing Street, around 6:00pm to 7:30pm

All lined up along Whitehall opposite Downing street occupying the pavement and police 'pen' with our flags and banners on the barriers.

More Photos here.

There were also other demonstrations around the UK on April 15th at:

Aberdeen:
Aberdeen Campaign against Climate Change held a banner protest outside BP. They also held a demo outside Royal Bank of Scotland, Union Street who are financing the Ensus biofuel refinery and another in Ireland.

Brighton
Brighton biofuel activists made a colourful banner and flyer tour of Brighton city centre and Sussex University on Tuesday, talking to people taking all forms of public transport and dropping windscreen alerts to raise awareness around the new RTFO. For more photos and a press release, see: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/396734.html .

Bristol
Members of Bristol Rising Tide and Espacio Bristol –Colombia held a protest outside a Tesco petrol station in Eastville, Bristol from to highlight the devastating consequences that agrofuels from monocultures will have on the climate, ecosystems, food prices and human rights. Tesco are a major investor in agrofuels and have been a biofuel market leader amongst UK supermarkets.

Cirencester
Traffic Lights for Peace leafleted the petrol station at Tesco's in Cirencester on April 15th to highlight the instigation of the RTFO.

Cheltenham
Cheltenham Friends of the Earth organised and attended a peaceful banner protest at Tescos, which was supported by Campaign Against Climate Change Gloucester and Stroud Green Party. Within minutes security had removed protestors from the premises. Despite the foul weather over a 150 leaflets were distributed to passing motorists and were very well received.

Edinburgh
An anonymous group of agrofuel activists disabled several pumps at two BP filling stations. BP was targeted as a major investor in agrofuels.
Separately, and later in the day, some 25 people held a lawful banner protest outside the BP petrol station in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh. The protest was organised by Agrofuel Action Edinburgh. People dressed as trees formed a “forest” and handed out leaflets about the damaging effects of agrofuels and BP's involvement. Edinburgh Rebel Clown Army members then “deforested” them and the “trees” started to emit black CO2 balloons. Others “greenwashed” the BP sign with green water and a mop. The spectacle was accompanied by a strong police and media presence. Unfortunately, 5 clowns who had created a fun, party-like, light-hearted atmosphere at the protest were suddenly surrounded by police and arrested. They were charged with Breach of the Peace for ‘milling around’. Read more about the arrests here ... and here ... and here ... and here and here for a slide show.

Ghent (BELGIUM)
Thirty activist of "agrocrisis" blocked the gates of the Cargill factory in Ghent (Belgium). Several activist are chained to the main gate blocking entrance to trucks.

Glasgow
Protesters against biofuels dropped a banner at Charing Cross today, to draw attention to the use of food to make petrol. See Indymedia report
There was also a protest at the BP station near Anniesland in Glasgow on 19th April. Banners were hung and leaflets handed out to motorists for an hour and a half.

Gloucester
On April 15th to draw attention to the Renwable Transport Fuel Obligation, Campaign against Climate Change Gloucester targeted shoppers at Tesco's largest Gloucester store, at St. Oswald's site.

Hitchin
About 12 people from Hitchin and Lethworth held a protest on 12th April, calling on the UK government to drop the RTFO.

Leeds
Huddersfield Friends of the Earth organised a banner protest with leafleting outside the constituency office of Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment.

Manchester/Bolton
Campaigners from Manchester held a banner protest with costumes, samba music and an orang-utan costume outside the constituency office of Ruth Kelley, Secretary of State for Transport, the minister directly responsible for the RTFO.

Stroud
On April 15th Traffic Lights for Peace protested at the main Tesco in Stroud at the government's introduction of the RTFO and Tesco's position as market leader at the forecourt. Many customers were bemused by the Government's apparent lack of thought into the issue, especially in view of majority world food shortages.

See pictures and more details & links here.

Photos from Biofuelwatch demo, Wednesday 30th January, 12.30 - 2.30 pm, outside the Greenergy office at 198 High Holborn, London.

The banner that says it all, outside the offices of Greenergy a company involved in biofuels made from raw products including palm oil and soy.

More photos from the demo here.

For more pictures from the Biofuelwatch week of actions around the country see here.