[Lapg] Biofuels: the fake climate change solution - a petition worth signing

Thu Mar 13 14:12:08 PDT 2008

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Dear friends,

EU and US demand for biofuels is pushing up world food prices and 
/increasing/ climate emissions. *We should feed people, not cars*--so 
join the call for global standards to clean up the biofuels industry:
* Click here now* 
<http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_now/11.php?cl=61544648>

Each day, *820 million people in the developing world do not have enough 
food to eat*^1 . Food prices around the world are shooting up, sparking 
food riots from Mexico^2 to Morocco^3 . And the World Food Program 
warned last week that rapidly rising costs are endangering emergency 
food supplies for the world's worst-off^4 .

*How are the wealthiest countries responding? They're burning food.*

Specifically, they're using more and more biofuels--alcohol made from 
plant products, used in place of petrol to fuel cars. Biofuels are 
billed as a way to slow down climate change. But in reality, because so 
much land is being cleared to grow them, *most biofuels today are 
causing more global warming emissions than they prevent*^5 , even as 
they push the price of corn, wheat, and other foods out of reach for 
millions of people^6 .

Not all biofuels are bad--but without tough global standards, the 
biofuels boom will further undermine food security and worsen global 
warming. Click here to use our simple tool to send a message to your 
head of state before this weekend's global summit on climate change in 
Chiba, Japan, and *help build a global call for biofuels regulation*:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_now/11.php?cl=61544648

Sometimes the trade-off is stark: *filling the tank of an SUV with 
ethanol requires enough corn to feed a person for a year*^7 . But not 
all biofuels are bad; making ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane is vastly 
more efficient than US-grown corn, for example, and green technology for 
making fuel from waste is improving rapidly.

The problem is that the EU and the US have set targets for increasing 
the use of biofuels without sorting the good from the bad. As a result, 
rainforests are being cleared in Indonesia to grow palm oil for European 
biodiesel refineries, and global grain reserves are running dangerously 
low. Meanwhile, rich-country politicians can look "green" without asking 
their citizens to conserve energy, and agribusiness giants are cashing 
in. And if nothing changes, the situation will only get worse.

*What's needed are strong global standards* that encourage better 
biofuels and shut down the trade in bad ones. Such standards are under 
development by a number of coalitions^8 , but they will only become 
mandatory if there's a big enough public outcry. It's time to move: this 
Friday through Saturday, the twenty countries with the biggest 
economies, responsible for more than 75% of the world's carbon 
emissions^9 , will meet in Chiba, Japan to begin the G8's climate change 
discussions. Before the summit, let's raise a global cry for change on 
biofuels:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_now/11.php?cl=61544648

A call for change before this week's summit won't end the food crisis, 
or stop global warming. But it's a critical first step. By confronting 
false solutions and demanding real ones, we can show our leaders that we 
want to do the right thing, not the easy thing.

As Kate, an Avaaz member in Colorado, wrote about biofuels, *"Turning 
food into oil when people are already starving? My car isn't more 
important than someone's hungry child."*

It's time to put the life of our fellow people, and our planet, above 
the politics and profits that too often drive international 
decision-making. This will be a long fight. But it's one that we join 
eagerly--because the stakes are too high to do anything else.

With hope,

Ben, Ricken, Iain, Galit, Paul, Graziela, Pascal, Esra'a, Milena -- the 
Avaaz.org team

*SOURCES:*

[1] World Food Programme. "Hunger Facts." Accessed 10 March 2008. 
http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/facts/hunger_facts.asp

[2] The Sunday Herald (Scotland). "2008: The year of global food 
crisis." 9 March 2008. 
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2104849.0.2008_the_year_of_global_food_crisis.php

[3] The Australian: "Biofuels threaten 'billions of lives'" 28 February, 
2008. 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23336840-11949,00.html

[4] AFP: "WFP chief warns EU about biofuels." 7 March 2008. 
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpCFf3spGcDQUuILK5JFV-6NL1Dg

[5] New York Times: "Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat." 8 February 
2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html

[6] The Times: "Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global 
scale." 7 March 2008. 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3500954.ece ... 
also see BBC: "In graphics: World warned on food price spiral." 10 March 
2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7284196.stm

[7] The Economist: "The end of cheap food." 6 December 2007. 
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10252015

[8] See http://www.globalbioenergy.org, 
http://cgse.epfl.ch/page70341.html, and 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3489640.ece.

[9] Government of Japan. "Percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions 
(FY 2003) contributed by G20 nations." 
http://www.env.go.jp/earth/g8/en/g20/index_popup.html

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