Ethical Sugar - EU joins call for global biofuel market with strict regulations

The Guardian - Friday 6 July 2007

EU joins call for global biofuel market with strict regulations

The Brazilian president and EU leaders yesterday joined forces to urge the creation of an international market in sustainable biofuels that would force producers to meet strict environmental, labour and social standards.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told an EU-sponsored international conference that second-generation biofuels would help reduce the gap between rich and poor nations by enabling more than 100 countries to become producers, compared with the 20 which currently produce energy for the world's 200 states.

He said his country's use of biofuels had reduced its dependence on fossil fuels by 40% and created 6 million jobs while cutting deforestration by a half.

"I am convinced we can repeat these results in many poor and developing countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean," he said.

In return, the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, agreed that Europe would have to slash its tariffs - now 70% - on Brazilian exports of bio-ethanol. The EU has set itself a binding target of 10% of all vehicle fuel to come from biofuels by 2020, but admits that much of this will be met by imports.

There are fears the headlong rush to develop biofuels will generate more global warming than the carbon they erase.

Mr Barroso called for a convergence of technical standards in an international market, which would have to be underpinned by a rigorous sustainability mechanism.

The EU now gets 1.8% of its vehicle fuel from biofuels, including ethanol, but Mr Mandelson warned that imports had to be sustainable.

"Europeans won't pay a premium for biofuels if the ethanol in their car is produced unsustainably by systematically burning fields after harvests, or if it comes at the expense of rainforests. We can't allow the switch to biofuels to become an environmentally unsustainable stampede in the developing world."