Biofuels targets are unethical

Almaty. April 13. Kazakhstan Today - According to a report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics the production of biofuels to meet UK and European directives violates human rights and damages the environment, Kazakhstan Today reports.

The legal requirement to put biofuels in petrol and diesel sold in the UK and Europe is unethical because their production violates human rights and damages the environment, a major new inquiry has concluded, The Guardian reported.

"Biofuels are one of the only renewable alternatives we have for transport fuels, but current policies and targets that encourage their uptake have backfired badly," said Prof Joyce Tait, at Edinburgh University, who chaired the 18-month inquiry by the independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB). "The rapid expansion of biofuels production in the developing world has led to problems such as deforestation and the displacement of indigenous people."

The need to meet rising biofuel targets has also led to exploitation of workers, the loss of wildlife and higher food prices, the inquiry found. Under the European Union's renewable energy directive, 10% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources such as biofuel by 2020. Alena Buyx, assistant director at the NCB, said: "If you look at food prices and they go up and incomes do not, then more people will probably die from hunger, and biofuels are one contributing factor to those price rises." Biofuels also contribute to poor harvests, commodity speculation and high oil prices, which raise the cost of fertilisers and transport, she added.

The main transport biofuels that are currently used - bioethanol, made from maize and sugar cane, and biodiesel, made from palm and rape seed oil - both come from food crops and can have substantial ethical problems, the inquiry concluded.

But future generations of biofuel, made from agricultural waste such as straw, fast-growing perennials such as willow or miscanthus grass, or even algae grown in tanks, could avoid many of the problems by not competing directly with food. "These are very exciting technologies," said Leyser. "The potential is huge."

In the UK, 5% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2013. Today, 3% of the UK's petrol and diesel comes from biofuel, mostly produced in Argentina, Brazil and other European countries. But in January, it was revealed that two-thirds of the biofuel being used in the UK today failed to meet environmental standards. Government cuts to the budget of the Carbon Trust also saw a flagship algal biofuels project cancelled.

Photo: the Guardian

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