Sustainability and Agrofuels what does it really mean?

1. Sustainability and Agrofuelswhat does it really mean? Helena Paul EcoNexus www.econexus.info International Workshop on Global Agrofuels: Sustaining What Development? 30 August – 3 September 2009 Maputo Mozambique

3. EU: agrofuels promised as a means to: • Reduce GHG emissions • Develop and modernise agriculture • Provide better returns to desperate EU farmers • Regenerate declining rural areas • Provide jobs and export earnings • Regenerate soils and degraded land with “advanced” agrofuels

4. What is the context of EU agrofuels promotion? • EU model of development built on fossil oil • Agrofuels as a means to maintain the model, not to change it Thus • satisfying industrial lobbies • not challenging the public love of the car • while (hopefully) reducing greenhouse gas emissions

5. EU agrofuels 2020 projection • 10% per EU state minimum for transport • This could require 16-31Mha of EU land! • Total EU arable land: 88 Mha • For 10% of transport, which is around 25% of EU total energy consumption, we would need 18-35% EU arable land! • Conclusion: • this would compete with EU food production • increasing from 10% would mean using even more EU land for agrofuels • clearly EU must import from the global south!

6. Agrofuel futures in the EU • Second generation agrofuels, using the whole plant or tree • Promised as a solution to all the problems of the first generation Leading to • Replacement of all products derived from fossil oil with products from biomass • The integrated biorefinery and • The bioeconomy, linking biotech oil, power, automotive, timber and paper industries

7. Sustainability criteria for agrofuels in the EU • To reassure politicians and public with doubts about agrofuels • Environmental criteria to prevent destruction of forests, biodiversity, land with high carbon stocks, wetlands and peatlands; promote use of “degraded” land • Social criteria to seek compliance with ILO conventions - if countries have signed them

8. Monitoring and compliance rules for criteria • Economic operators should be able to show criteria have been fulfilled • Member states to ensure that this does not place an “undue burden” on industry • Since fuels will be mixed, a “mass balance” system is used to calculate average sustainability of the mixture • Main punishment is not being allowed to count your fuels towards the target

9. What is sustainability? Some definitions • "Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." • able to endure over time • renew itself • and maintain processes into the future

10. We are told that agrofuels are sustainable • Fossil oil will finally run out, • But plants and trees keep growing - an endlessly renewable resource What are we really sustaining here? • Perpetuating the internal combustion engine • Keeping cars on the road • Sustaining the western development model

11. Western development model • Based on high energy intensity, using energy dense fossil oil • Can/should the rest of the world follow the same path in the future? • Is it just to deny them what the west has enjoyed? • Are peak oil/climate collapse inevitable? • Can/should we develop an alternative to fossil oil? • Should we change the model? • If so, how?

12. If not this model, then what? • What kind of development do we want? • What kind of development would be truly sustainable? • Who will decide and how? • How do we get there from here? • Who will it belong to?

13. Development – two basic models • Imposed from outside, eg: via investment for export trade • Market driven, often corporate dependent • Products primarily for export • Developed from inside, from the ground up • This needs time and broad public discussion • Protection from outside interference and pressure • May require outside assistance, but on the terms of those who have developed it

14. What part will agrofuels play in our energy futures? How important will agrofuels be: • for agriculture? • for energy? Will they mainly be produced: • For export? • For internal use?

15. Can agrofuels sometimes play a role in sustainable development? • where there is no electricity grid • where there are few roads and little infrastructure • when produced by communities for their own use and limited sales • without the intervention of large corporations • What would this look like?

16. Agrofuels and colonisers old and new • EU and EU corporations looking for agrofuel production in Africa • Land-grabbing by corporations and countries seeking investment opportunities for profit and food/agrofuel security • Brazil exporting sugar ethanol production methodologies worldwide including to Mozambique • China investing in Africa and South America – wants animal feed, iron, timber ….and agrofuel

17. Last word from Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on theright to food • “There still is a vast market for first-generation agrofuels” • Existing incentives for biofuels in the United States and European Union remain a cause for grave concern • Biofuels remain an important driver behind big land acquisitions and land leases in poor countries that jeopardize local inhabitants’ food security. • Safeguards adopted by the European Union in 2008 “absolutely insufficient to monitor to the impacts on the countries concerned by shifts in land use for agrofuels production.” • Next generation fuels “are too distant for the moment to say that we can continue to insist on the use of agrofuels for transport.” June 12, 2009, 10:24 am Biofuels and ‘Land Grabs’ in Poor Nations by James Kanter AFP/Getty http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/biofuels-and-land-grabs-in-poor-nations/