CLIMATE CHANGE & BIOFUELS U.N. ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP) (UNTV)

NetworkNewsToday: 16 December 2009 - UNEP - UNTV: A recent UN report said that substituting petrol with biofuels such as ethanol from sugar cane can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70 per cent.

The report, produced by the UN Environment Programmes (UNEP) International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management to assess the climate impact of biofuels, also found that not all biofuel production has a positive impact on emissions.

Achim Steiner, head of UNEP, said that risks associated with the production are often overlooked and its ultimate contribution to solving the greenhouse problem is overestimated.

SOUNDBITE (English) Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP):
Biofuels like any new technology, in inverted commas, always suffers the risk that as one looks at its potential one overestimates its ultimate contribution to solving a problem.

Clearing tropical forests for biodiesel crops, for instance, leads to far greater carbon emissions than those saved by substituting biofuel for fossil fuel in cars.

Aside from deforestation and loss of habitat for animals, critics have long feared that energy crops are threatening food security especially when agricultural land is increasingly used for biofuel crop production.

Just last year, UNEP estimated that worldwide land use for biofuel crops was about two percent of global cropland.

The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which recently co-hosted a conference on renewable energy in Mexico, believes that biofuel production creates jobs in rural areas. George Assaf, UNIDOs Spokesperson, added the organization supports the production as long it does not challenge food security and harm the environment.




SOUNDBITE (English) George Assaf, Spokesperson, UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO):
UNIDO is very supportive of any effort by various countries themselves to create jobs to create incomes and to revive particularly employment in rural areas. And if biofuels can do that without challenging food security and without harming the environment, then we are supportive of that.

Biofuel companies like Biocom do not see themselves competing with food production. Juan Herrera at Biocom added that the objective is to use degraded or abandoned land.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Herrera, Biocom:
Our object is to use unused land, land that was never used, nor ever will be used for food for various reasons, be they climatic, agronomic, and including economic. We are not interested in competing with land for food.

Another way to avoid land use conflicts is to develop advanced biofuels from algae, wood or waste. BioFields, another biofuel company, believes producing energy from algae, for instance, has none of the disadvantages that occur in existing technologies.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Sergio Ramirez, BioFields:
Producing energy from algae has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages that occur in existing technologies.

Today, biofuels provide 1.8 percent of the worlds transport fuel and are mainly produced in the United States, Brazil and the European Union. .......... United Nations Environment Programme: UNEP. .......... ................................. NetworkNewsToday:
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• Climate change
• biofuels
• UN Environment Programme
• UNEP
• Achim Steiner
• UNIDO
• UN
• United Nations
• UNTV
• algae
• food security
• George Assaf
• ethanol
• sugar cane
• fossil fuels
• Juan Herrera
• Biocom
• Sergio Ramirez
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