EU: NGOs warn against biofuels

Friends of the Earth Spain (Amigos de la Tierra) has accused the EU of ?ignoring clear warnings about the environmental and social problems generated by biofuels?.

The environmental organisation calls on European citizens to participate with their campaign to convince Brussels to reconsider their position and to ?ask the EU to revoke the 10% biofuel quota, to be achieved by 2020, that is currently obligatory?. According to David Sànchez, who is in charge of Agriculture and Nutrition for Amigos de la Tierra, there is a great danger in the exploitation of bio fuels because ?using agriculture and trees to feed our cars and electric power stations could have a high social and environmental cost?. It is ?very important that the political system listen to these warnings? added Sànchez.

Amigos de la Tierra are not the only group to warn against the use of agrofuels ? the Organisation for Economic Coordination and Development (OECD) have also declared that ?the environmental impacts of these kinds of fuels could be even worse than those of petrol? and that ?the price of food is likely to keep increasing for the next 10 years at least?. In an article written by the World Land Trust and published on Science, it was claimed that the EU?s objective of substituting 10% of carbon fuels with bio fuels by 2020 was not an effective means of reducing carbon emissions. The International Transport Forum also warned that ?bio fuels are too expensive to be considered a solution to climate change and the energy crisis?, this is especially true for developing countries and farmers who do not own the land they cultivate, added Amigos de la Tierra.

Josè Carlos Puentes, in charge of Climate Change and Energy at Amigos de la Tierra, said that ?the EU must put a stop to bio fuels by revoking their obligatory objectives and concentrate their efforts on coercing the car industry to make their cars more environmentally friendly. There is also much that can be done to extend the use of solar power?.

More info:

• www.tierra.org
• www.foeeurope.org