Sir, – Within a month the Government and other European Union member states will decide whether to limit the amount of land-based biofuels used in our transport energy. The importance of these negotiations – which will impact on European and world food price rises, land rights and world deforestation rates – is critical.
Almost all biofuels are made from food crops, such as wheat, soy, palm oil, rapeseed and maize. These are essential food sources for a rapidly expanding global population, of which 800 million is going hungry. Without the EU’s current biofuels targets – which are being reviewed – the price of foodstuffs such as vegetable oil would be 50 per cent lower in Europe by 2020 than at present, and 15 per cent lower in the rest of the world. The World Bank, OECD, WTO, IMF, FAO and five other UN agencies have all warned “prices are substantially higher than they would be if no biofuels were produced”. These same agencies have called for a global end to subsidies and targets for biofuels on the basis of their impact on food price volatility.
Most biofuels do not even deliver the carbon emissions savings that they are subsidised to provide. And the demand for additional land to accommodate EU biofuels, an area the size of Ireland, puts great strain on the environment, wildlife and local communities.
EU citizens supporting our work understand the impact that biofuels policy is having on hunger, land grabs and climate change, while costing governments and taxpayers billions every year, and pushing up prices for consumers. Yet the EU Council is considering weaker measures that would neither limit the use of damaging biofuels nor capture their full climate impacts.
We are calling on the Government to urgently step in and play its part in fixing the EU’s failed biofuels policy. It can do this by strongly and publicly supporting an immediate halt to the expansion of biofuels that compete for food, by pressing for full accounting for their real climate impacts, and by phasing out subsidies. We urge the Government to show leadership in the EU negotiations and back the Commission’s proposal for a cap on land-derived biofuels of 5 per cent or lower to stop further increases in the use of food for fuel. – Yours, etc,
OLGA McDONOGH, CEO, ActionAid Ireland; JIM CLARKEN, Chief Executive, Oxfam Ireland; ÉAMONN MEEHAN, Executive Director, Trócaire; OISIN COGHLAN, Director, Friends of the Earth; JAMES NIX, Policy Director, An Taisce; & ROSAMOND BENNETT, Chief Executive, Christian Aid,
C/o Parnell Square,
Dublin 1.