"The UK as many others Member states is developing fake measures to fight against climate change designed to make public feel better about thereselves, without political pain:
Car voluntary agreement with the EU and Tax looks morelike incientive than anything else! The other big fake measure is the biofuel: 1. A study conducted last year by Sarasin, a Swiss bank placed "the present limit for the environmentally and socially responsible use of biofuels at roughly 5% of current petrol and diesel consumption in the EU and US" 2. A study by the Dutch scientific consultancy Delft Hydraulics found that the production of every tonne of palm oil causes 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This makes oil palm 10 times worse than petroleumJust a lot of hot air" JLR
Tony Blair talks the talk on climate change. But a new investigation reveals that the government's strategies for cutting carbon dioxide emissions are little more than a sham. By George Monbiot
George Monbiot
Monday March 5, 2007
Guardian
'If we do not motivate ourselves to take the decisions commensurate with the gravity of the threat that we face," said Tony Blair at the launch of the Bill Clinton's climate initiative last year, "we will betray in the most irresponsible way the generations to come. That is not something I want on my conscience as a political leader."
Well, it looks as if he is going to have to live with it. Blair has had 10 years in which to tackle Britain's contribution to global climate change, and he has blown it. His bold initiatives and stirring speeches now look like little more than greenwash. For the first time, we have the figures to prove it.
With Channel 4's series Dispatches, I commissioned a team of environmental scientists at University College, London, to conduct a peer-reviewed audit of the government's planned greenhouse gas reductions. The scientists, led by Professor Mark Maslin, estimated the real impact of its carbon-cutting policies. Nothing quite like this has ever been done before. The results are staggering.
The government has two formal targets for reducing Britain's climate-changing gases. The first is the one set by the Kyoto protocol, which commits the UK to a 12.5% reduction by 2012. The second is its long-term goal of a 60% cut in carbon dioxide by 2050. This target will be made legally binding later this year.
Last year the government's Energy Review found that to show "real progress" towards the 2050 target, by 2020 the UK's greenhouse gas emissions would need to be reduced to between 143 and 149m tonnes a year. This means a cut of 29 to 31% on 1990 levels. We asked Maslin's team to assess the policies that are supposed to deliver it.
For an audit, the 2020 aim is more useful than the 2050 target. If we are to have a realistic chance of hitting it, the necessary policies must already be in place or in development. While the Blair government would be only partly responsible if we fail to make 60% by 2050, it will carry almost all the blame if we do not reach its milestone in 2020.
Our audit reveals that the government's assessment of its own policies is wildly optimistic. Instead of a 29-31% cut by 2020, it is on course to deliver a reduction of between 12% and 17%. At this rate the UK will not meet its 2020 milestone until 2050. This result suggests that the government's claim to be "leading the world on tackling climate change" is simply another product of the Downing Street spin machine. Its carbon-cutting policies are little more than a sham. Take transport, for example. The government expects that national transport emissions (not counting international flights) will rise by 4m tonnes between 1990 and 2020. Maslin's team discovered that the real increase will be between 7 and 13m tonnes.
Faced with a vocal and powerful motoring lobby, Blair's government has sought to cut emissions in three ways, all of which are failing. The first is a voluntary agreement, struck in Brussels with the major motor manufacturers. In 1998, the car makers promised they would reduce the average emissions from new cars from 190 to 140 grams per kilometre in 10 years. The deadline is next year, and they will miss their target by half: the real figure is likely to be 164 grams.
The second mechanism is the tax we pay to put a car on the road - vehicle excise duty (VED). In 2001, the government replaced the flat rate for VED with a graduated tax. Owners of the most fuel-hungry cars would have to pay more than owners of efficient models. Seven bands were introduced, starting with A (for cars that produce less than 100 grams per kilometre) and rising to G (for those producing more than 225 grams).
A survey carried out by the Department for Transport found that to encourage most drivers to switch to a less polluting model, you would need a difference between the bands of at least £150. The government's Sustainable Development Commission went further: if the tax were to be really effective, the top whack should be £1,800. But the government's top rate is £215, and the average difference between the bands £35. When you are shelling out £65,000 for a Range Rover, is that really going to make a difference?
The third policy is to encourage us to switch to biofuels - diesel or alcohol made from plants. By 2010, the government wants 5% of all our transport fuels to be made this way. By 2020, the EU wants to raise this to 20%. But there are two massive problems, which the government consistently refuses to address. The first is that beyond a certain point, the production of fuel begins to compete directly with the production of food. A study conducted last year by Sarasin, a Swiss bank placed "the present limit for the environmentally and socially responsible use of biofuels at roughly 5% of current petrol and diesel consumption in the EU and US". Already, when only a tiny fraction of our transport fuel comes from plants, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that the demand for biofuels has helped to cause a "surge in the prices of cereals" to "levels not seen for a decade". All over the world, the poor are feeling the effect.
The second problem is that the new market has stimulated a massive expansion of destructive plantations, especially of oil palm. Palm oil planting is the major cause of tropical deforestation in both Malaysia and Indonesia. As the forests are cut down, the carbon in both the trees and the peat they grow on turns into carbon dioxide. A study by the Dutch scientific consultancy Delft Hydraulics found that the production of every tonne of palm oil causes 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This makes oil palm 10 times worse than petroleum. Already nine new palm oil refineries are being built, in Malaysia, Singapore and Rotterdam, specifically to meet the growing demand from the European biofuel market.
The government urges us not to worry - a "second generation" of biofuels will eventually become available, made from straw, wood and waste. But there is no guarantee that these will out-compete their cheap but destructive rivals, or that they will be ready before the last rain-forests in south-east Asia have been felled.
In every sector the audit found similar oversights, elisions and deceptions. In housing, for example, the government has loudly proclaimed its intention to use better building regulations to make new houses more energy efficient - by 2016, it says, every new home in the country will be "zero carbon". But since the energy efficiency regulations were first introduced in 1985 there has not been a single prosecution for non-compliance. Building inspectors treat the energy rules as a joke - in one recent survey they dismissed them as "trivial" and "not life threatening". A study by the Building Research Establishment of new houses passed by the inspectors found that 43% of them did not meet satisfactory energy standards.
But the biggest greenwash of all involves flying. Under the Kyoto protocol, the pollution from international flights does not count towards a country's emissions. The government has taken this as a licence to ignore flying even when setting its own targets. The emissions simply do not appear on the balance sheet. Otherwise it could not justify its instruction to the UK's airports to double their capacity between now and 2030.
Because they were assessing the government's own programme, the auditors didn't produce figures for aviation. But even the government proposes that carbon emissions from planes will rise by 10.5m tonnes between 1990 and 2020. Had it been incorporated into the audit, this figure would have reduced the cuts for the whole economy by 2020 to between 8 and 13%.
But the government's figure is almost certainly a wild underestimate. It counts only half the emissions from planes flying to and from our airports, on the grounds that only half the passengers belong to this country. In reality, 67% are UK citizens. It also ignores the other greenhouse gases - especially high-level water vapour - that flying produces. If increases in international flights were counted in the national total, they could wipe out all the cuts in the UK's emissions between 1990 and 2020.
What makes these failures most shocking is that Blair's government took office in 1997 with a massive head start. When John Major left office, the UK was one of the few nations on course to meet its Kyoto commitments, with plenty of emissions to spare. That advantage has already been squandered. Today the UK is turning out slightly more carbon dioxide than it was in 1997 (though other greenhouse gases have declined) and we will just scrape in beneath the 2012 Kyoto bar, while on course for dramatically missing our 2020 and 2050 targets.
Instead of real action to deal with the greatest menace of the 21st century, the government has sold us a set of fake policies, designed to make us feel better about ourselves, without political pain. Next time Blair gives a heart-rending speech about his legacy to future generations, don't believe a word of it.
· George Monbiot will present Dispatches: Greenwash on Channel 4 at 8pm tonight. www.monbiot.com
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Tuesday 6 March 2007
Official report says US CO2 to rise by 20%
Official report says US CO2 to rise by 20%
· Publication delayed for more than a year
· Authors argue president's efforts 'are working'
Ed Pilkington in New York
Monday March 5, 2007
Guardian
A draft report prepared by the Bush administration admits that emissions of greenhouse gases by the United States will rise by 2020 to 20% above 2000 levels, flying in the face of warnings from scientists that drastic action to cut emissions is needed if environmental catastrophe is to be averted.
The internal administration report, which has been obtained by the Associated Press, should have been handed to the United Nations more than a year ago as part of the world body's monitoring of climate change, but its publication has been delayed. The draft estimates that US emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, largely from the burning of oil, coil and natural gas, will rise from 7.7bn tons in 2000 to 9.2bn tons in 2020 - an increase of 19.5%.
The growth is in line with expectations, but underlines how out of kilter the US government is with world opinion and efforts to tackle climate change. The Kyoto protocol, which the Bush administration has refused to ratify partly on the grounds that it would damage the US economy, demands of most developed countries that they reduce their 1990 emissions levels by 5% by 2012.
The US produces about a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide and other gases believed responsible for warming the world's atmosphere. Environmentalists and green groups say that if irreversible global warming is to be avoided far more stringent targets should be set than even those proposed under the Kyoto protocol, which came into force two years ago. On April 14 campaigners will be demonstrating in cities across the US to call for 80% cuts by 2050.
The draft report obtained by AP says that how much the administration can do to cut emissions beyond merely slowing the rate of increase will become clear "as the science justifies".
It does, however, predict what may happen to the country were global warming allowed to gather pace, including a sharp reduction in spring snow coverings in the north-west of the country, which could exacerbate summer water shortages throughout that region.
The White House council on environmental quality, which is responsible for the draft report, told AP that its final version will "show that the president's portfolio of actions and his financial commitment to addressing climate change are working".
The report's confirmation of the scale of pollution projected for the US comes a month after climatologists issued their strongest warning to date of the devastation that global warming could cause on the planet.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, written by hundreds of the most respected climate scientists from around the world, said that human activity was "very likely" to be behind the phenomenon.
Average temperatures could rise by over 6C (11F) by the end of the century, the panel said.
The stated policy of the Bush administration is to reduce emissions, but so far it has set only voluntary targets. In the absence of binding commitments from the federal government, individual states have moved independently.
California has led the field by aiming to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to meet the target of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
· Publication delayed for more than a year
· Authors argue president's efforts 'are working'
Ed Pilkington in New York
Monday March 5, 2007
Guardian
A draft report prepared by the Bush administration admits that emissions of greenhouse gases by the United States will rise by 2020 to 20% above 2000 levels, flying in the face of warnings from scientists that drastic action to cut emissions is needed if environmental catastrophe is to be averted.
The internal administration report, which has been obtained by the Associated Press, should have been handed to the United Nations more than a year ago as part of the world body's monitoring of climate change, but its publication has been delayed. The draft estimates that US emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, largely from the burning of oil, coil and natural gas, will rise from 7.7bn tons in 2000 to 9.2bn tons in 2020 - an increase of 19.5%.
The growth is in line with expectations, but underlines how out of kilter the US government is with world opinion and efforts to tackle climate change. The Kyoto protocol, which the Bush administration has refused to ratify partly on the grounds that it would damage the US economy, demands of most developed countries that they reduce their 1990 emissions levels by 5% by 2012.
The US produces about a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide and other gases believed responsible for warming the world's atmosphere. Environmentalists and green groups say that if irreversible global warming is to be avoided far more stringent targets should be set than even those proposed under the Kyoto protocol, which came into force two years ago. On April 14 campaigners will be demonstrating in cities across the US to call for 80% cuts by 2050.
The draft report obtained by AP says that how much the administration can do to cut emissions beyond merely slowing the rate of increase will become clear "as the science justifies".
It does, however, predict what may happen to the country were global warming allowed to gather pace, including a sharp reduction in spring snow coverings in the north-west of the country, which could exacerbate summer water shortages throughout that region.
The White House council on environmental quality, which is responsible for the draft report, told AP that its final version will "show that the president's portfolio of actions and his financial commitment to addressing climate change are working".
The report's confirmation of the scale of pollution projected for the US comes a month after climatologists issued their strongest warning to date of the devastation that global warming could cause on the planet.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, written by hundreds of the most respected climate scientists from around the world, said that human activity was "very likely" to be behind the phenomenon.
Average temperatures could rise by over 6C (11F) by the end of the century, the panel said.
The stated policy of the Bush administration is to reduce emissions, but so far it has set only voluntary targets. In the absence of binding commitments from the federal government, individual states have moved independently.
California has led the field by aiming to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to meet the target of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Monday 5 March 2007
A switch to biofuels will not save the planet
A switch to biofuels will not save the planet
Published: 05 March 2007
On the face of it, it's most encouraging that biofuels will be at the top of the agenda when George Bush touches down in Sao Paolo on Thursday to meet his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. For years, environmentalists have complained of the industrialised world's "addiction to oil", to use Mr Bush's own words. The US President has now clearly grasped the message that his gas-guzzling compatriots need to wean themselves off fossil fuels - and not simply because the oil-rich Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is so hostile to America. Mr Bush understands that, with or without Mr Chavez, to continue consuming fossil fuels at the present breakneck speed is not an option.
Hence the biofuel "summit" in Sao Paolo, where the two countries that make the bulk of the world's ethanol - from sugar cane in Brazil and corn in the US - are likely to seal an "ethanol alliance". The terms of this accord will probably be aimed at boosting sugar-cane production in Latin America to meet a rising demand for ethanol in the US that America's farmers can't meet.
It's not just Mr Bush who is eyeing the potential for a world energy revolution in the endless fields of sugar cane surrounding Sao Paolo. Businesses are already excited, and are pumping huge sums into the development of renewable alternatives to oil, which include soybean-based biodiesel and other ethanol variants made from wood chips. In short, the ethanol business is booming. Moreover, the ambitious targets the US has set for ethanol production mean the boom has only just begun. Mr Bush has ordered a five-fold increase in American use of biofuels by 2017, which means a target of 35 billion gallons a year.
It's an exciting, almost dizzying thought, that the humble corn stalk or sugar cane may hold the solution to the looming energy crisis.
So what's the catch? This is the hard part. Of course it's good that the leader of America, a Texas Republican to boot, has finally understood that the US, as the world's biggest single consumer of energy, has got to change its energy source.
The problem is that many Americans, and Europeans for that matter, seem to think it is just a matter of flicking a switch: one moment fossil fuel, the next moment, sugar cane-plus-corn. Lifestyle - unaltered.
Sadly, that's not enough. Ethanol may sound like the kind of "friendly" energy the world has been waiting for. But for ethanol production to rise to the levels Mr Bush is hoping for, huge amounts of the world's remaining forests will have to be cut down and turned over to corn or sugar cane.
The existing hectarage devoted to agriculture will not be remotely large enough to produce the quantity of fuel needed. In other words, paradoxically, a growing reliance of renewable energy may accelerate the destruction of the rainforests we so desperately need to moderate the planet's temperature. Besides, according to the World Conservation Union, growing corn uses far more energy than the finished fuel produces.
There is another downside to the ethanol boom. As demand rises, the price of the cereals from which it is partly made soars as well. Tortilla prices in Mexico are already surging as a result of ethanol demand in America. This threatens the precarious livelihoods of many of the world's poorest people.
To simply shift from fossil fuel use to ethanol is not going to get us out of our dilemma. It's not going to "save the planet", or not alone. That will require a sharp reduction in fuel consumption, too. The question is whether Mr Bush, other world leaders, or the public, for that matter, have taken this fact on board.
The Big Green Fuel Lie
How long will the American and European government sail the idea that the biofuel is a solution to climate change? This is mainly untrue ... Jean-Luc Roux
The Big Green Fuel Lie
George Bush says that ethanol will save the world. But there is evidence that biofuels may bring new problems for the planet
By Daniel Howden in Sao Paolo
Published: 05 March 2007
The ethanol boom is coming. The twin threats of climate change and energy security are creating an unprecedented thirst for alternative energy with ethanol leading the way.
That process is set to reach a landmark on Thursday when the US President, George Bush, arrives in Brazil to kick-start the creation of an international market for ethanol that could one day rival oil as a global commodity. The expected creation of an "Opec for ethanol" replicating the cartel of major oil producers has spurred frenzied investment in biofuels across the Americas.
But a growing number of economists, scientists and environmentalists are calling for a "time out" and warning that the headlong rush into massive ethanol production is creating more problems than it is solving.
To its advocates, ethanol, which can be made from corn, barley, wheat, sugar cane or beet is a green panacea - a clean-burning, renewable energy source that will see us switch from dwindling oil wells to boundless fields of crops to satisfy our energy needs.
Dr Plinio Mario Nastari, one of Brazil's leading economists and an expert in biofuels, sees a bright future for an energy sector in which his country is the acknowledged world leader: "We are on the brink of a new era, ethanol is changing a lot of things but in a positive sense."
In its first major acknowledgment of the dangers of climate change, the White House this year committed itself to substituting 20 per cent of the petroleum it uses for ethanol by 2017.
In Brazil, that switch is more advanced than anywhere in the world and it has already substituted 40 per cent of its gasoline usage.
Ethanol is nothing new in Brazil. It has been used as fuel since 1925. But the real boom came after the oil crisis of 1973 spurred the military dictatorship to lessen the country's reliance on foreign imports of fossil fuels. The generals poured public subsidies and incentives into the sugar industry to produce ethanol.
Today, the congested streets of Sao Paolo are packed with flex-fuel cars that run off a growing menu of bio and fossil fuel mixtures, and all filling stations offer "alcohol" and "gas" at the pump, with the latter at roughly twice the price by volume.
But there is a darker side to this green revolution, which argues for a cautious assessment of how big a role ethanol can play in filling the developed world's fuel tank. The prospect of a sudden surge in demand for ethanol is causing serious concerns even in Brazil.
The ethanol industry has been linked with air and water pollution on an epic scale, along with deforestation in both the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests, as well as the wholesale destruction of Brazil's unique savannah land.
Fabio Feldman, a leading Brazilian environmentalist and former member of Congress who helped to pass the law mandating a 23 per cent mix of ethanol to be added to all petroleum supplies in the country, believes that Brazil's trailblazing switch has had serious side effects.
"Some of the cane plantations are the size of European states, these vast monocultures have replaced important eco-systems," he said. "If you see the size of the plantations in the state of Sao Paolo they are oceans of sugar cane. In order to harvest you must burn the plantations which creates a serious air pollution problem in the city."
Despite its leading role in biofuels, Brazil remains the fourth largest producer of carbon emissions in the world due to deforestation. Dr Nastarti rejects any linkage between deforestation and ethanol and argues that cane production accounts for little more than 10 per cent of Brazil's farmland.
However, Dr Nastari is calling for new legislation in Brazil to ensure that mushrooming sugar plantations do not directly or indirectly contribute to the destruction of vital forest preserves.
Sceptics, however, point out that existing legislation is unenforceable and agri-business from banned GM cotton to soy beans has been able to ignore legislation.
"In large areas of Brazil there is a total absence of the state and no respect for environmental legislation," said Mr Feldman.
"Ethanol can be a good alternative in the fight against global warming but at the same time we must make sure we are not creating a worse problem than the one we are trying to solve."
The conditions for a true nightmare scenario are being created not in Brazil, despite its environment concerns, but in the US's own domestic ethanol industry.
While Brazil's tropical climate allows it to source alcohol from its sugar crop, the US has turned to its industrialised corn belt for the raw material to substitute oil. The American economist Lester R Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, is leading the warning voices: "The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its two billion poorest people who are simply trying to stay alive is emerging as an epic issue."
Speaking in Sao Paolo, where the ethanol boom is expected to take off with a US-Brazil trade deal this Thursday, Fabio Feldman, said: "We must stop and take a breath and consider the consequences."
Biofuel costs
When Rudolph Diesel unveiled his new engine at the 1900 World's Fair, he made a point of demonstrating that it could be run on peanut oil. "Such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time," he said.
And so it has come to pass that US President George Bush has decreed that America must wean itself off oil with the help of biofuels made from corn, sugar cane and other suitable crops.
At its simplest, the argument for biofuels is this: By growing crops to produce organic compounds that can be burnt in an engine, you are not adding to the overall levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The amount of CO2 that the fuel produces when burnt should balance the amount absorbed during the growth of the plants.
However, many biofuel crops, such as corn, are grown with the help of fossil fuels in the form of fertilisers, pesticides and the petrol for farm equipment.
One estimate is that corn needs 30 per cent more energy than the finished fuel it produces.
Another problem is the land required to produce it. One estimate is that the grain needed to fill the petrol tank of a 4X4 with ethanol is sufficient to feed a person for a year.
The Big Green Fuel Lie
George Bush says that ethanol will save the world. But there is evidence that biofuels may bring new problems for the planet
By Daniel Howden in Sao Paolo
Published: 05 March 2007
The ethanol boom is coming. The twin threats of climate change and energy security are creating an unprecedented thirst for alternative energy with ethanol leading the way.
That process is set to reach a landmark on Thursday when the US President, George Bush, arrives in Brazil to kick-start the creation of an international market for ethanol that could one day rival oil as a global commodity. The expected creation of an "Opec for ethanol" replicating the cartel of major oil producers has spurred frenzied investment in biofuels across the Americas.
But a growing number of economists, scientists and environmentalists are calling for a "time out" and warning that the headlong rush into massive ethanol production is creating more problems than it is solving.
To its advocates, ethanol, which can be made from corn, barley, wheat, sugar cane or beet is a green panacea - a clean-burning, renewable energy source that will see us switch from dwindling oil wells to boundless fields of crops to satisfy our energy needs.
Dr Plinio Mario Nastari, one of Brazil's leading economists and an expert in biofuels, sees a bright future for an energy sector in which his country is the acknowledged world leader: "We are on the brink of a new era, ethanol is changing a lot of things but in a positive sense."
In its first major acknowledgment of the dangers of climate change, the White House this year committed itself to substituting 20 per cent of the petroleum it uses for ethanol by 2017.
In Brazil, that switch is more advanced than anywhere in the world and it has already substituted 40 per cent of its gasoline usage.
Ethanol is nothing new in Brazil. It has been used as fuel since 1925. But the real boom came after the oil crisis of 1973 spurred the military dictatorship to lessen the country's reliance on foreign imports of fossil fuels. The generals poured public subsidies and incentives into the sugar industry to produce ethanol.
Today, the congested streets of Sao Paolo are packed with flex-fuel cars that run off a growing menu of bio and fossil fuel mixtures, and all filling stations offer "alcohol" and "gas" at the pump, with the latter at roughly twice the price by volume.
But there is a darker side to this green revolution, which argues for a cautious assessment of how big a role ethanol can play in filling the developed world's fuel tank. The prospect of a sudden surge in demand for ethanol is causing serious concerns even in Brazil.
The ethanol industry has been linked with air and water pollution on an epic scale, along with deforestation in both the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests, as well as the wholesale destruction of Brazil's unique savannah land.
Fabio Feldman, a leading Brazilian environmentalist and former member of Congress who helped to pass the law mandating a 23 per cent mix of ethanol to be added to all petroleum supplies in the country, believes that Brazil's trailblazing switch has had serious side effects.
"Some of the cane plantations are the size of European states, these vast monocultures have replaced important eco-systems," he said. "If you see the size of the plantations in the state of Sao Paolo they are oceans of sugar cane. In order to harvest you must burn the plantations which creates a serious air pollution problem in the city."
Despite its leading role in biofuels, Brazil remains the fourth largest producer of carbon emissions in the world due to deforestation. Dr Nastarti rejects any linkage between deforestation and ethanol and argues that cane production accounts for little more than 10 per cent of Brazil's farmland.
However, Dr Nastari is calling for new legislation in Brazil to ensure that mushrooming sugar plantations do not directly or indirectly contribute to the destruction of vital forest preserves.
Sceptics, however, point out that existing legislation is unenforceable and agri-business from banned GM cotton to soy beans has been able to ignore legislation.
"In large areas of Brazil there is a total absence of the state and no respect for environmental legislation," said Mr Feldman.
"Ethanol can be a good alternative in the fight against global warming but at the same time we must make sure we are not creating a worse problem than the one we are trying to solve."
The conditions for a true nightmare scenario are being created not in Brazil, despite its environment concerns, but in the US's own domestic ethanol industry.
While Brazil's tropical climate allows it to source alcohol from its sugar crop, the US has turned to its industrialised corn belt for the raw material to substitute oil. The American economist Lester R Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, is leading the warning voices: "The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its two billion poorest people who are simply trying to stay alive is emerging as an epic issue."
Speaking in Sao Paolo, where the ethanol boom is expected to take off with a US-Brazil trade deal this Thursday, Fabio Feldman, said: "We must stop and take a breath and consider the consequences."
Biofuel costs
When Rudolph Diesel unveiled his new engine at the 1900 World's Fair, he made a point of demonstrating that it could be run on peanut oil. "Such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time," he said.
And so it has come to pass that US President George Bush has decreed that America must wean itself off oil with the help of biofuels made from corn, sugar cane and other suitable crops.
At its simplest, the argument for biofuels is this: By growing crops to produce organic compounds that can be burnt in an engine, you are not adding to the overall levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The amount of CO2 that the fuel produces when burnt should balance the amount absorbed during the growth of the plants.
However, many biofuel crops, such as corn, are grown with the help of fossil fuels in the form of fertilisers, pesticides and the petrol for farm equipment.
One estimate is that corn needs 30 per cent more energy than the finished fuel it produces.
Another problem is the land required to produce it. One estimate is that the grain needed to fill the petrol tank of a 4X4 with ethanol is sufficient to feed a person for a year.
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