Saturday, 23/11/2024 | 03:42 GMT+7
The Rome-based Global Bioenergy Partnership today released a
voluntary policy for producing and using biomass and biofuels in ways that
don’t add to climate change or affect food prices. The partnership, established
in 2005 by the Group of Eight nations and five emerging economies, also
includes 13 international organizations and institutions.
In February, palm oil climbed to almost a three-year high as
consumers and companies increased their use of the product in cooking, detergents,
cosmetics and biodiesel. The boom may be exacerbating global warming as growers
destroy rainforests, needed to store carbon dioxide, to plant palm-oil trees,
said Corrado Clini, chairman of the partnership and director general of Italy’s
Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea.
“Biofuels could cover up to 25 percent of the fuels
portfolio in the next 30 years,” Clini said in an interview. “The environmental
certification of biofuels would be a very important driver for promoting
biofuels in the market.”
Biomass is a renewable energy source, such as wood, crops,
manure or some garbage, that is turned into a biofuel, often by burning.
The partnership developed 24 indicators to assess the
sustainability of biofuels based on greenhouse-gas emissions, biological
diversity, the price and supply of a national food basket, access to energy,
economic development and energy security. The indicators don’t include
thresholds or limits and don’t constitute a standard, according to a statement
by the group.
Full Costs
Governments have rushed to develop bioenergy alternatives to
fossil fuels without understanding the full costs, the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization said in a 2010 report.
“Bioenergy potentially offers poor countries many advantages
if properly managed,” according to the report. “However, bioenergy developments
have also been a cause for deep concern regarding their economic, social and
environmental viability, because of their potential negative impacts on food
security through crowding out of staple food production and on the environment
due to natural resource scarcity and intensive agriculture production.”
On Feb. 10, palm oil rose to 3,967 ringgit ($1,304) per
metric ton on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange, the highest since March 2008.
“Palm oil produced in Indonesia was produced through the
destruction of the rainforest,” Clini said. “We said in Europe that it’s not
possible to import and use biofuels for reducing the carbon intensity of our
economies when biofuels are produced in an unsustainable way.”
bloomberg.com