New report from Oxfam calls for change in EU biofuels policy
Thu 22 September 2011
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New research by Oxfam calls on the EU to 'urgently fix biofuels policy driving a scramble for land in poor countries'. Meanwhile, the European Commission has been accused of shying away from the introduction of more sophisticated carbon accounting methods for biofuels in the face of mounting evidence of their indirect land-use effects.
Oxfam's report - Land and Power - highlights the growing pace of land deals brokered around the world. Oxfam says that this is often to the peril of poor communities who lose their homes and livelihoods – sometimes violently – with no prior consultation, compensation or means of appeal.
The report reveals preliminary research indicating that as many as 227 million hectares -the size of North Western Europe- have been sold, leased or licensed in large-scale land deals since 2001, mostly by international investors.
Oxfam says that the lack of transparency and the secrecy that surrounds land deals makes it difficult to get exact figures but to date up to 1,100 of these deals amounting to 67 million hectares have been cross-checked. Half of the deals are in Africa, and cover an area nearly the size of Germany.
Oxfam warns this modern day land rush follows a drive to produce enough food for people overseas, meet damaging biofuels targets or speculate on land to make an easy profit. However, many of the deals are in fact ‘land grabs’ where the rights and needs of the people living on the land are ignored, leaving them homeless and without land to grow enough food to eat and make a living.
The European Union target of obtaining 10 percent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020 will require millions of hectares of developing country land on which to grow biofuels feedstocks such as palm oil or soy.
Oxfam says that 'the skewed European Union biofuels policy' is one of the drivers fuelling this modern day land rush. Oxfam calls on the EC to stop encouraging land grabs in poor countries by reforming its biofuels policy and, in particular, by dropping the 10 per cent target for renewable energy in transport by 2020 and introducing strict social sustainability criteria for biofuels to qualify as renewable energy.
Oxfam also calls for the full impact of biofuels on the environment to be taken into account by adopting indirect land use change (ILUC) factors in the calculation of the greenhouse gas emission savings of each type of biofuels.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, the European Commission has been accused of 'fudging' the CO2 effects of biofuel. European Voice reports that the EC has rejected the advice of scientific experts and is backing away from imposing tough carbon-dioxide emissions standards on specific types of biofuel.
It says that the two Commissioners responsible for policy are poised to propose instead a cruder environmental standard, that all biofuel sold in theEuropean Union will have to produce carbon-dioxide savings of 50% compared with fossil fuel. The current standard, contained in the EU's renewable-energy law, is a saving of at least 35%.
Scientists and campaigners have been advising the Commission to introduce more sophisticated measurements of the greenhouse-gas savings from biofuel, arguing that the effects of indirect land-use change iILUC) should be taken into account. The report notes that different types of biofuel have different iLUC effects, which means that their environmental performance varies, sometimes widely.
Earlier this year LowCVP submitted a response to a European Commission consultation which acknowledged the importance of iLUC factors in the assessment of biofuels and called for a more rigorous approach to tackling their overall environmental effects.
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