April 15, 2008

Legislation came into effect today that stipulates all petrol and diesel which is sold at UK pumps now has to include at least 2.5% biofuels.  This comes into effect a staggering two days after the Chancellor, Alastair Darling, asked the World Bank to produce an analysis on the effect of green policies, including America and Europe's biofuel programmes, on global food shortages.

Doubts have been cast on the effectiveness of using biofuels, as a means of combating climate change, for several months.  Last month the UK’s top environmental scientist, Professor Robert Watson, said that ministers should await the results of their inquiry into biofuels' sustainability, before committing to using them.  With the current food crisis biting into many poorer regions globally, the day’s new environmental policy should surely have been parked until the research had been published.

The Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) is to introduce 2.5% biofuels at the pumps from today.  Professor Watson warned that it would be insane if the RTFO's aims had the opposite effects of those intended, namely to reduce emissions.  Oxfam have said that millions of indigenous people faced clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations such as palm oil. 
The aid agency is understandably concerned that the switch from food production to energy crops - including a large-scale drive in the US to produce bioethanol from maize - is contributing to rising food prices.  These policies are insanity, and reprehensible on the part of American and European policy makers.

The demand for bioethanol fuels has contributed to an unprecedented food crisis.  Governments must do more effective research into ways to combat climate change and listen to all of the available findings, before making a decision of this magnitude.  They also must be flexible enough to make quick changes as required, in order to avoid pushing through outdated ideas as revolutionary new schemes.  In biofuels they seem to have thought that they had found a climate change get out of jail free card, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

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