On Thursday 16th October, activists frorm Action Against Agrofuel disrupted the European Biofuels Expo and Conference 2008, the largest agrofuels expo in Europe. A group of activists disguised as delegates entered the expo hall, climbed the wall and dropped banners on the main entrance, The aim of the protest was to highlight the link between agrofuels expansion and deforestation and world hunger. As well as making exascerbating climate change through rainforest destruction, population displacement and associated human right abuses. The expansion of agrofuels has a led to a major increase in the price of the world main staple foods such as maize, rice and wheat.

According to a new report comissioned for the European Union the global biodiversity crisis is costing vastly more than the current credit crisis.

Via the BBC:

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.

Download the Report:

• The Teeb Review on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodivesrsity

Via Indymedia

Since 7.50 am this morning, 20 participants in this year’s Camp for Climate Action and members of Action Against Agrofuels have been blockading the only access gate to Cargill’s European regional head office in Cobham, Surrey. 8 activists have locked on to the gates closing the site down completely. Agrobusiness giant Cargill are being targeted by the protesters for their role in rainforest destruction and land-grabbing as well as for profiteering from the food crisis.

I recognise a couple of faces, and i only wish i was there!

Phil England at the 300-350 [ppm] radio program has just put the latest episode online. Topics covered include the Camp for Climate Action and the dangers of Agrofuels.

Download show: here.

All of Phil’s shows are available online at the COIN archive.

Widespread flooding in the US midwest leaves the harvest rotting in sodden fields; flooding in the uk threatens the survival of ground nesting birds; the EU complains that the US is dumping its subsidised Biofuels on European markets (subsidised agricultural dumping, moi?) and the absolute king of Saudi lands opts to crank the tap up a notch even though it’s a financial (rather than supply) problem. Funny how we believe him when he claims limitless oil reserves, but not when he grasses the world’s financial markets up on their profiteering.

So we can all get back to “normal” now, can we? Is there anybody anywhere who still thinks it’s that simple?

Oh – and Solar power begins a break through to “grid parity”.

Widespread flooding in the US midwest leaves the harvest rotting in sodden fields; flooding in the uk threatens the survival of ground nesting birds; the EU complains that the US is dumping its subsidised Biofuels on European markets (subsidised agricultural dumping, moi?) and the absolute king of Saudi lands opts to crank the tap up a notch even though it’s a financial (rather than supply) problem. Funny how we believe him when he claims limitless oil reserves, but not when he grasses the world’s financial markets up on their profiteering.

So we can all get back to “normal” now, can we? Is there anybody anywhere who still thinks it’s that simple?

Oh – and Solar power begins a break through to “grid parity”.

On 4th June, Newham London Borough Council will debate a planning application made by Blue-NG Ltd for the UK’s first combined heat and power plant to be run on biofuels. This will be a large plant, burning 56,000 litres of vegetable oil a day. The final decision will be made shortly afterwards by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation.

Blue NG are planning seven further plants to follow this one. Blue-NG Ltd. and 20C Ltd. have managed to deceive councillors and environmental groups alike by disguising the fuel source and they have failed to engage the local community in the consultation process.

This is of particular concern given the noxious emissions associated with burning pure plant oils such as rapeseed and palm oil, which are a threat to public health. In Germany the courts recently ruled against a CHP plant burning palm oil, forcing it to close for just this reason.

For more information about the Blue NG proposal, click here;

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/files/thames_gateway_biodiesel_project.pdf

To take action, click here;

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/beckton.htm

If you live in London, then please send an objection to the Planning Officers, expressing your concern. You can find a draft letter on the ‘take action’ link above. We are asking only people from London to send the letters since we are not sure whether lots of letters from elsewhere will help at this stage.

On Wednesday June 4th at 7pm Newham LBC has their final consultation.

If you are a member of an environmental group or a local person living in Newham and would like to give evidence at this meeting then please submit your concerns as described above and make a specific request to present evidence at the consultation meeting on the 4th. Otherwise as a concerned member of the public you can still attend the consultation meeting.

There are two protest events run jointly by Biofuelwatch and London Food not Fuel;

1). Saturday May 31st which includes two activities: There will be a stall outside Sainsbury’s on Myrtle Road, East Ham from 10:30 to 6:30. We could do with help manning the stall, explaining and handing out flyers and getting signatures for a petition. This will be followed by a banner protest from 3:00 to 5:00pm at Newham Town Hall, East Ham on the Barking Road around the corner from Sainsburys.

2). Wednesday 4th June. The second event will be timed to coincide with councillors attending the final consultation meeting at Newham Town Hall on June 4th. The meeting is at 7:00pm so we will be protesting from 6:30pm, Newham Town Hall, High Street South entrance, East Ham.

At 7:00pm we will join other members of the public attending the meeting.

Please join us and help to STOP the UK’s first biofuel power plant!

CONTACTS FOR BECKTON PROTEST

Biofuelwatch: info@biofuelwatch.org.uk

Deepak Rughani 07931 636 337; Almuth Ernsting 01224 324 797
Food Not Fuel: Maryla 07793 319 141; Amanda Burton 07939 522 966
Clare 07761 111 1325

Thank you

Biofuelwatch and Food Not Fuel

From this Tuesday (15th April) all UK forecourts will be required by law to sell only fuel which is blended with 2.5% biofuel. This will have devastating consequences on climate, carbon sinks, food prices and human rights, with people being violently evicted from their land. EU targets are set to increase to 10% by 2020.

“The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed
one person for a year “

Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute

Please come and join to protest against biofuels and the new law (the RTFO). There will be protests all around the UK on the same day!

Tuesday 15th April
12.30-2.30
BP station in Bruntsfield (BP are big investors in biofuels).

If you like, dress as a tree to be deforested or an April (bio)fool! Bring along drums and instruments. Please contact me if you want to discuss any of this or you would like an information sheet of key messages to get across.

Hope to see you on Tuesday, Julia : 07846939059

What’s wrong with agrofuels (biofuels)?

Deforestation, peatland destruction and nitrogen fertiliser use mean that agrofuels are actually worse for the climate than fossil fuel. Paul Crutzen (nobel prize-winner) suggests that rapeseed biodiesel is up to 70% worse for climate change than ordinary fossil diesel (even though it’s grown in the UK so involves no deforestation or peatland destruction) due to nitrous oxide emissions from nitrogen fertiliser which is a 300x more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2.
In the global South people are being evicted from their lands to make way for agrofuel plantations, often violently with deaths and human rights abuses taking place. In Argentina 200,000 families and in Paraguay 100,000 families have been evicted due to soya expansion. These are just 2 examples but this is happening on a wide scale in South-east Asia, India, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Colombia and the list goes on.

Food prices are soaring as a result of agrofuels. According to Jean Ziegler (until recently the UN special rapporteur on the right to food) there are 12 million more people going hungry now than a year ago due to rising food prices, something which agrofuels are a big contributer to.
Instead we need to dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, live more locally and improve public transport.

For more info on biofuels visit: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

There are many reasons for the price of rice going up. Of course all grain prices are linked to varying degrees so this is part of a wider problem in agricultural production. The most often quoted drivers of increasing prices are the rise of asia up the economic scale, leading to more meat consumption, and more grain required to feed the animals grown for food; the rise of bofuels, perticularly of corn ethanol in the US is also a significant factor.

Other factors such as soil degredation, decline of water qaulity and the effects of climate change on global agriculture through shifting weather patterns and drought, are all likely to add to these pressures in the medium to long term.

If you live in the US then you will be aware of the pressure being exerted on China to unpin its currency. One of the main reasons they dont do this is that they need to subsidise food for the hundereds of millions of extremely impoverished Chineese who are not currently bennefiting from national accension.

• Past article on climate change and rice.

Rising Tide, and several other groups got together on April Fools day to rebrand it Fossil Fools Day, and a whole range of foolish construction projects and policies where highlighted. Well, in the dash away from fossil fuels, one possible option has been latched onto as a way of maintining hypermobility; biofuels.

With widespread deforestation being drivin by demand for biofuel crops, this is starting to look like a bad idea!

On 15th April Bio-Fools day is being launched with a protest at Downing street at 6pm, this date was chosen as it is the launch of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), and environmetal policy that stands a good chance of doing worse than breaking even on environmental criteria!

“The RTFO will mean that all petrol and diesel must contain a minimum percentage of ‘biofuel’. This will drastically increase the demand for ‘biofuels’ or ‘agrofuels’, that is fuels that are made from living plants (rather than the “fossilised” ones that make up oil and coal). The theory is that because these fuels absorb as much CO2 when they grow, as they emit when they are burnt, they are basically ‘carbon neutral’. Now, ‘biofuels’ made from waste materials like used chip fat are fine…. but these could only ever supply a fraction of the demand if we use biofuels to replace any significant proportion of the transport fuel that now comes from fossil fuels. To do this requires growing crops for fuel (eg rapeseed, palm oil, soy, sugar cane or jatropha) on a massive scale (this is why we use the term “agrofuels”).

This increases the pressure on land and in places like Brazil and Indonesia this increases the pressure on the rain forest and other surviving biodiverse ecosystems. Clearance for palm oil plantations is now the biggest driver behind deforestation in Indonesia and an increase in the price of soy (caused by increased demand) is seen as the main cause of the recent huge increase in the rate of deforestation in Brazil. Even if agrofuels are produced from, say, “certifiably sustainable” rapeseed in Europe this can have knock-on effects – it means there is less rapeseed available to produce cooking oils and foodstuffs and this results in a massively increased demand for Indonesian palm oil to fill the gap.”

More on biofuels here.