I would like to speak about biofuels and to introduce a New Zealand resolution at the conference on the sustainable use of biofuels.
As the reality of climate change and its frightening consequences bite, many countries are seeking alternative fuel sources to petroleum that will produce less carbon emissions, and reduce their dependence on oil at the same time.
Biofuels have been hailed internationally as a positive fuel source and the production of biofuels has been rapidly increasing worldwide. Many governments, including my own, are now actively encouraging the conversion to biofuels by incentive schemes and mandatory targets.
In the United States 20% of maize crops are already devoted to making ethanol and the US government wants 20% of American gasoline produced by biofuels by 2012 and other countries like the European Union have set similar targets.
The problem is that most of the crops that are being used to produce biofuels — corn, wheat, soybeans, palm oil and sugar — or industrial versions of food crops such as industrial maize — are food crops that the form the basic staple crops of millions of people in the poorest regions of the world
Already the rush to biofuels and the conversion of great swaths of agricultural land to produce fuel rather than food has had the effect of driving up food prices and is starting to set up a competition between food and fuel that could, some experts are warning, have disastrous consequences for humanity.
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute warns, for example that "the competition for grain between the worlds 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its 2 billion poorest people who are simply trying to survive is emerging as an epic issue."
Already wheat prices have doubled in the last year, corn is 50% higher than it was a year ago. Rice is 20% more expensive and soybean prices are the highest they have been in 34 years. At the same time as we are confronted by soaring food prices — or food inflation — global food reserves are at their lowest point in 25 years. Cereal stocks stand at around only 57 days which makes global food supplies precarious and vulnerable to an international crisis or a big natural disaster. And any unforeseen crisis could make food prices escalate even further.
The FAO warns that the demand for biofuels is likely to keep food supplies tight and food prices high for the next decade. The soaring food prices and tightening food stocks have prompted the UN Special Rapporteur on Food Jean Ziegler to warn, in a hard hitting report to the General Assembly last year, that any further rapid conversion of food crops into fuel for cards could be a recipe for disaster which could bring even greater hunger and water scarcity to the developing world.
He says there is a serious risk of a battle between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hungry in the developing world at the mercy of rapidly rising prices for food, land and water.
Other potential negative impacts include deforestation, the destruction of ecologically imported areas and a reduction in the amount of land and water available for food production.
For this reason Ziegler is calling for a 5 year moratorium on converting any further agricultural land for biofuel production until, firstly, the potential social, environmental, food security and human rights impacts have been fully examined and regulatory structures to prevent or mitigate negative impacts, and secondly until we invested in a so-called second generation of biofuels that are produced not from food producing crops but from animal, wood or crop wastes.
Producing biofuel by these means, he points out, would dramatically reduce the competition for food and land and water. It would also enable biofuels production to be complementary to, not in competition with, existing agriculture. It would not require the diversion of food, land and water away from food production and food prices could remain stable, and farmers would have profitable ways of disposing of their waste products. It would be, in other words, a win win solution.
That's why New Zealand is proposing a resolution which proposes a 5 year moratorium on converting any more agricultural land for biofuels, and encourages investment in a second generation of biofuels from waste products. It says it is essential that biofuels deliver net greenhouse gas benefits and not harm other aspects of the economy or ecosystems.
It also calls for the development of a sustainable biofuel standard that would allow reliable certification claims. This is important because the idea has taken hold that we can help the climate simply by switching to biofuels, when in fact many studies have shown that biofuels may not significantly reduce carbon emissions, once account is taken of the fossil fuels that are needed to plant, harvest and process food crops for biofuels especially using mechanised methods of production.
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