Note: this is for reference only. Please see current version of this action.
Below is our recommended letter to MEPs concerning the EU’s biofuel policy at the present time (or as a Word .doc). Please send a copy to your MEP, or - even better - use it as inspiration to write in your own words.
**************************************
Dear ..........,
I am extremely concerned that millions of hectares of rainforest have been earmarked for destruction in order to meet Europe’s demand for biofuels. I am also concerned about news that biofuel production is rising at a time when global grain consumption exceeds production: World grain reserves are currently at the lowest level since 1972, leading to rising grain prices which endanger the lives of poor people in poor countries.
As soon as the EU Biofuel Directive was passed, both Malaysia and Indonesia declared their intention to become major providers of biodiesel made from palm oil, and to expand oil palm plantations into virgin rainforests. More recently, Friends of the Earth Indonesia have identified the growing biodiesel market in Europe as one of the two key threats to Borneo’s rainforests (see www.eng.walhi.or.id/kampanye/hutan/konversi/060412_palmoilplantation_/).
The European Biofuel Directive was meant to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to be part of the solution to climate change. The destruction of tropical rainforests, however, is linked to about one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions from all human activities. When a hectare of virgin rainforest is cleared and replaced with oil palms, this discharges in the order of 65 times as much carbon as can be saved annually by using the palm oil to replace mineral diesel, according to data from the ASB study in Indonesia.
Up to a further 15% of all global CO2 emissions come from south-east Asia’s peat fires. Satellite images have shown that 75% of the fire hotspots are on plantation land, which largely grow palm oil (see www.cifor.cgiar.org/docs/_ref/publications/newsonline/33/indonesia.htm). The Kyoto agreement, by comparison, would only reduce global emissions by 5% between 1990 - 2012, even if all industrial nations including US fulfilled it.
The conversion of rainforests into oil palm plantations (or soya plantations in the Amazon) is also one of the main threats to many thousands of species of animals and plants, including the orang-utan. It has also been linked to serious human rights abuses and the dispossession of many local communities.
When the EU Biofuel Directive was devised, studies were done to find out how ‘climate-friendly’ fuels derived from sugar beet, rapeseed oil and other crops grown in Europe are - even though it was estimated that Europe could only supply half the demand of the 5.75% target by 2010. No studies were done into the effects of importing biofuels from the tropics. For sources on this and other points I raise in this letter, please see www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/sources.php. Other biofuel crops linked to tropical forest destruction include soya, and Brazilian sugarcane, which threatens the Atlantic forest, the remaining Cerrado savannah, and the Pantanal wetlands, all of which are very biodiverse.
I am sure you will agree that biofuels should only be used if they actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, compared to petrol or diesel. Using biomass from agricultural and organic waste, or from sustainable local schemes clearly should be supported.
At Westminster, 69 MPs have signed EDM 1568 "Tropical Rainforest Destruction and Biofuel Sourcing", which seeks that the EU remove the incentive for imports for biofuel from tropical rainforest belt countries of palm oil, soya oil and bioethanol which results from implementing the Biofuel Directive in current form.
The EU is now reviewing the Biofuel Directive. In order to ensure a fully sustainable biofuel market, I believe that the following must be done:
1. There must be an EU-wide ban on imports of biofuels linked to loss of highly prized habitat, in particular a presumption against imports of palm and soya oil sourced in tropical rainforest belt countries, unless the country has verifiably ceased deforestation.
Specifically, there should be a EU ban on the use of biofuels from palm oil from several countries including Malaysia and Indonesia, and from soya oil and ethanol from Brazil.
2. There must be a moratorium on the EU Biofuel Directive, to avoid it having a negative impact on climate change emissions, rainforests and global food supplies.
Furthermore, this summer’s unprecedented and unpredicted heatwaves and droughts across much of the northern hemisphere show that ‘targets’ for biofuel production are dangerously inappropriate, as they could suddenly leave food supplies at a premium. Targets can also distort against growing solid biomass crops where the latter would achieve greater greenhouse gas savings.
3. For biofuels to be sustainable, they must, overall, lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions than petrol or diesel, and exclude those linked to rainforest and peat destruction. They must not be grown at the expense of old-growth forests, wetlands or natural grasslands, and must have no negative impact on biodiversity, water and soil, on food supplies, nor on the human rights of local communities.
4. The EU must actively work with other major market nations for biofuels to regulate the international trade in biofuel commodities, so as to stop rising oil prices causing a new dash to destroy the world's remaining rainforests and other highly prized ecosystems.
There is precedent in European law establishing that it is lawful to apply environmental criteria in procurement, in the Helsinki Bus ruling, 2002. Furthermore, in the recent WTO judgment on GM crops, the WTO did not rule against the principle of an import on crops for environmental or public health reasons, only that the EU had acted unlawfully in implementation (mainly the long delays in determining applications).
Please will you raise these issues with the European Commission as a matter of urgency, and call for a full debate in the European Parliament? I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
.....................
Kenya >