A case to my last point on the importance of giving nature conservation a lot more consideration in the biofuel discussion comes from a press release by the RSPB (http://www.rspb.org.uk/media/releases/details.asp?id=tcm:9-187561)

Too little account is being taken by the UK government of the impacts biofuel production could have on the environment, an RSPB report warns today (April 15).

On the day the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) becomes law, forcing oil companies to sell more biofuel, campaign groups fear the over-hasty push for biofuels will accelerate climate change and habitat loss worldwide, cause severe damage to soil and water and the loss of wildlife.

The government has just commissioned a review of the impacts of biofuels, which should expose some of the hazards of biofuel production. But bizarrely, the RTFO comes into force before its findings are known.

A tragedy

Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPB, said: ‘Some biofuel production will cause habitat loss, displace food production and emit more greenhouse gases than are being saved.

‘Those promoting biofuels claim they will use existing farmland or land of poor quality, without damaging wildlife or the climate. But the impacts of biofuel production on forests and wetlands are already being seen worldwide. One species is already extinct because of biofuel production and could be the first of many. It is a tragedy that customers money is going to be spent on driving this destruction.’

The RSPB, Greenpeace, Oxfam and many other groups have warned that reports required by the RTFO are too weak to prove that biofuels supplied to customers have actually cut greenhouse gas emissions. Nor will they document wider impacts on the environment and food production.

Losing precious habitats

Amongst the most damaging, on wildlife habitats and carbon stores, are the clearance of rainforest, peatlands and wildlife-rich savannahs in South America, south-east Asia and Africa, and the loss of grasslands in Europe.

Legal standards will be incorporated into the RTFO in 2010 and 2011 but that leaves two or three years of biofuel production without worthwhile environmental and social safeguards.

Land clearance, fertiliser use on energy crops, energy-intensive conversion of crops to fuel and the transport of crops to fuel stations can together mean the field-to-forecourt emissions of biofuel manufacture are higher than their fossil fuel equivalents.

Graham Wynne said: ‘That is disastrous if you are trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. Proof that biofuels were truly green should have been in place long before the RTFO came into force.’

A cool approach

The RSPB report, A cool approach to biofuels, calls for all biofuels to be legally required to cut emissions by at least 60 per cent. It warns that Europe can only meet its biofuel targets through imports, causing devastating habitat loss and price rises of staple foods in the developing world.

The report urges ministers to direct investment away from current biofuels to fund the development of ‘second generation’ biofuels, such as those using crop wastes.

Technology enabling wood, grass and algae to be turned into fuel is being developed and early signs are that emissions will be low. Transport emissions could also be cut, through improvements in vehicle efficiency and enforcing speed limits.

Ruth Davis, Head of Climate Change Policy at the RSPB, said: ‘Some biofuels can most certainly contribute to greenhouse gas cuts but they will not do so unless producers are legally bound to prove those cuts. Until then, drivers will be squandering their money on fuels that are anything but green.

‘There are other ways to cut emissions without causing the environmental and social devastation currently threatening many parts of the world.’
Notes

The RTFO, in force from today, says that biofuels must make up at least 2.5 per cent of transport fuel. By 2010, this must rise to 5 per cent.
* More than 14,000 people emailed Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, calling for the RTFO to be shelved, after RSPB adverts were published in national newspapers. The ads warned of habitat destruction and loss of wildlife driven by the demand for biofuels.
* The government ordered a review of the environmental and economic damage of growing biofuel crops in February 2008. The findings of the study, being undertaken by the Renewable Fuels Agency, will be published this summer, several months after the RTFO comes into force.
* The German government was last week reported to have dropped its plan to ensure that 10 per cent of petrol used by cars and light trucks in Germany consisted of biofuels. Environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said the new fuel could damage engines. Details here http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2213590/germany-ditches
* The Alagoas curassow, a large black bird once found in the Atlantic forest of north-eastern Brazil, has not been seen in the wild since 1979. Its extinction has been blamed on habitat destruction for sugar cane plantations, pesticide use on sugar cane and hunting, despite the species being protected by law. Fewer than 60 of the birds were thought to remain 40 years ago and all but two per cent of its forest home has been logged since the 1960s in a government-backed programme to grow sugar cane for ethanol production. Other species, including the Alagoas foliage-gleaner, are now in grave danger because of habitat loss. Incentives encouraging sugar cane cultivation could destroy the few forest fragments that remain.
* A range of oils is used to make biodiesel – palm, soya, cottonseed, oilseed rape, used vegetable oil and tallow. Sugar cane, sugar beet, wheat and corn are processed into ethanol, which is mixed with petrol.
* In South America, 22 million hectares of forest and savannah – two of the world’s unique wildlife habitats – are under threat from soya bean companies. These habitats act as carbon stores and this destruction and cultivation will result in massive additional carbon emissions.
* The Cerrado, a wildlife-rich savannah straddling the Brazil-Paraguay border, is already been developed for energy crops and cattle pasture. It hosts 90,000 insect species, 40,000 fungi, 550 different birds and 150 mammal species – more than any other savannah in the world. Conservation International predicts that at current rates of loss, the Cerrado will be gone by 2030.
* Palm oil, used for foods, cosmetics and blended with other oils to make biodiesel, is grown on massive plantations in Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Much of it is grown on recently felled rainforest. Twenty eight of Sumatra’s forest-dependent bird species are globally threatened with extinction and have few other refuges beyond the island’s forests should those forest disappear. The global conservation status of 59 of Sumatra’s birds deteriorated between 1994 and 2000, almost all of them forest species.
* An area the size of Jamaica – 11,400 square miles – is being logged every year. The giant forest peccary was added to the world’s red list of threatened species as soon as it was found there in 2004. American farmers are switching to corn to produce ethanol, encouraged by the US government. Soya prices are rising as a result and Brazilian farmers want to cash in.
* The Kenyan government is considering a plan to transform 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of the Tana River Delta in Kenya, one of Kenya’s largest and most important freshwater wetlands, into sugar cane plantations for biofuel. The Delta boasts almost 350 bird species, elephants, hippos and lions, and supports numerous communities and their livestock. Details here https://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-183488
* In October 2007, the Ugandan government dropped plans to give away one third of the famous Mabira Forest Reserve for sugar cane. The plan to fell 17,500 acres (7,100 hectares) of Mabira would have breached a World Bank deal safeguarding the reserve. Mabira hosts one third of Uganda’s bird life including 75 species found no-where but the Guinea Congo Forest of which Mabira is a remnant. More here http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-176232
* Grasslands in Europe are also important carbon stores and are under similar pressures. It can take between 17 and 111 years for greenhouse gas savings to repay emissions released by land conversion (Well to Tank, Concawe, EUCar and JRC, 2006).
* The EU scrapped set-aside – farmland left free of food crops – for one year in September 2007. Its abolition across Europe is likely to be made permanent. Farmland wildlife has been declining for more than 30 years but many species have thrived on set-aside because of its abundance of seed and insect food, of nesting sites and because it is safe from farm operations. Species benefiting include skylark, yellowhammer, stone-curlew and corn bunting.

Source: press release by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) from 15 April 2008 (http://www.rspb.org.uk/media/releases/details.asp?id=tcm:9-187561)

Beitrag Bookmarken: [mehr...]