Brussels, 12/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - After the postponed adoption of the energy and climate change package (or “Green” package decided last October, EUROPE 9529), the Commission is expected to present its legislative proposals on 23 January for the implementation of binding objectives up to 2020 for renewable energies and biofuels - 20% and 10% respectively. These objectives were decided at the European Council last March (EUROPE 9383). This draft directive will include a series of accompaniment measures to attain the objectives set out, as well as provisions for providing the biofuel sector with an environmentally sustainable character. Portugal, which is in charge of the presidency of the Council of the EU until 31 December, is enthusiastically defending the European biofuel policy. Speaking at an international conference on the climate on 29 October in Lisbon, the Portuguese prime minister José Socrates even provided assurances that his country aimed to increase the biofuel share by 10% out of total fuel consumption by 2010, ten years before the European Council deadline. Despite the assurances repeated over recent weeks by the commissioner for agriculture, Mariann Fischer Boel, who said that the sharp hikes in current cereal prices are not linked to massive biofuel development, international reservations are increasing within UN bodies. The latter have underlined the risks of unbridled development in the production of bio-energies to the detriment of food production.
At the end of October Ms Fischer-Boel twice reaffirmed the fact that biofuels were not the main cause of current cereal prices. Addressing the Luxembourg parliament on 22 October she declared: “Allow me to extinguish the idea of bio-ethanols being responsible”. She stressed that less than 2% of cereals are used to this end in the EU. Highlighting the fact that increasing demand in countries like China and India, as well as the drought in Australia were “particularly important” elements in explaining the rise in cereal prices, the commissioner for agriculture added: “There is no reason for bread to become unaffordable in the shops, given that cereals rarely account for more than 4% of the price paid by the consumer for the bread”. When she addressed the Hungarian Agriculture Council on 25 October, Fischer Boel accused some of the media of “creating the impression that the main cause (Ed: of the increase in cereal prices) can be found in the biofuel programmes”. Underscoring some of the “temporary” factors such as “weather” and “structural” problems, and such as the increase in demand in China and India, the commissioner explained that “certainly, the programme in force in the US has an influence on the global market but there are many other causes”.
These ideas, however, do not conceal the doubts expressed at an international level on the sustainable future of biofuel production (or at least that of the first generation). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) caused controversy in mid-October by warning in its 2007 annual report that “the use of food products as a source of energy could have serious consequences on the demand for food if the growth in the use of green fuels continues…The decision of a country to promote green fuels while protecting its own farmers could lead to price rises in food imports for a country that is very probably poor and have repercussions on growth and inflation”. According to the IMF, this impact could, nonetheless, be mitigated if green biofuel producers in the US and member states of the EU reduced their customs duties for biofuels from emerging countries, like Brazil, “where their production is cheaper, more efficient and less harmful to the environment”. On 25 October, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, called on the international community to impose a five year moratorium for scientific research into biofuel production from farm waste and to establish a ban on land transfer for biofuel crop production. Ziegler said that this transfer contained serious risks of reducing basic food production of staples such as maize, wheat, sugar and palm oil, which could lead to a battle between food and fuel and leave those most vulnerable at the mercy of sharp increases in prices for basic products. The UN rapporteur on the right to food was not slow to describe such a possibility as “a crime against humanity”. According to a study carried out by the Canadian bank, CIBC, US ethanol production subsidy policy would have little effect on the US balance of payments but could stoke up inflation. This study asserted that “the misappropriation of maize from its role as a foodstuff to that of a fuel creates, at best, a very unsound energy balance. Its impact on food prices, which is already substantial, will only increase with time”. (E.H.)