How sustainable the production of green energy sources can be is key to the climate debate. Politicians Ruth Kelly and Peter Ainsworth debate the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation.
By Ruth Kelly and Peter Ainsworth
* Ruth Kelly is the secretary of state for transport.
* Peter Ainsworth is shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.
Ruth Kelly:
Our cars and other forms of transport are the third-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK and the only one likely to have increased by 2020. Any serious attempt to tackle climate change requires us to dramatically step up our efforts to reduce these emissions. So a clean, renewable energy that can be mixed with fossil fuels to power our cars has great attraction.
This is exactly what supporters of biofuels believe they offer. They say they are one of the few existing, feasible ways of slowing the growth of carbon emissions from transport. They point as well to their advantages in reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels at the same time as providing opportunities for developing countries to grow and refine the "green" energy source.
These arguments and the evidence that supports them have convinced many countries to promote their production and led the government to take cautious steps to encourage their use through the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation. The RTFO, which comes into force tomorrow, requires 2.5% of the fuel sold on garage forecourts to come from renewable sources, a figure set to rise to 5% after two years.
But the government also recognises increasing concern about biofuels. Critics say there is very little "green" about them; in their view, savings of greenhouse gases have been exaggerated, if not invented. They warn that the dash to grow palm oil, sugar cane and other crops from which biofuels are made is leading to widespread destruction of forests and wildlife habitats around the world - and worsening food shortages as farmland is switched to industrial crops. This is something that must be examined closely. As Alistair Darling outlined at the weekend, the government has asked the World Bank to look into food markets and the impact of subsidies in time for the next G7 meeting in June.
These concerns have led to demands for the government to scrap or postpone the introduction of the RTFO. The critics also have in their sights the European commission's proposed target of increasing the use of biofuels across the EU to 10% by 2020. But I am not convinced postponing the RTFO is the way forward. Not because the government dismisses concerns over biofuels, but because we took these concerns into account when drawing up our proposals.
The government has consistently stressed that biofuels are only worth supporting if they deliver genuine environmental benefits. We require suppliers to report on the impact of their biofuels in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability. The Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) will collect these reports - shaming poor performers, encouraging best practice and enabling us to monitor the impact of our policy.
I have also asked the RFA to lead a review into the wider indirect impact of biofuels, and to report in the summer. If we need to adjust policy in the light of new evidence, we will. We have kept up our demands internationally to ensure sustainable development of biofuels, and have made clear that we won't agree any increase in the European biofuels target until these demands are satisfied.
The expert consensus is that the best biofuels can deliver significant greenhouse gas savings. We need to encourage this type of biofuel, and discourage those that offer little or no savings and whose production can have a negative social and environmental impact.
Postponing the RFTO would not help this process or prevent other countries pressing ahead with unsustainable biofuels. It would put an end to investment in new clean, low-carbon biofuel production facilities in the UK, and could weaken our influence over the direction of EU policy in this area.
Tomorrow sees the introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), one of the government's alarmingly few "flagship" environmental policies. When it devised the plan, which requires the addition of a proportion of biofuel to the traditional fossil version we put in our tanks, ministers presumably thought they were on to something both green and popular. How disappointing, then, that instead of a bouquet of organically grown blooms from the environmental movement, all they are getting is a sustained and bellicose raspberry. The RSPB has branded the scheme "utter folly" and demonstrations have been planned outside No 10 and across the UK.
But the government was warned. It could have listened to The Archers, because Ambridge has been playing out many of the local aspects of the biofuels dilemma for weeks. Or it might have listened more carefully last autumn, when Conservatives voted against the obligation on the grounds that the targets coming into force make no distinction between sustainably produced biofuels and those that will hasten climate change, deepen poverty, endanger food security, and threaten habitats and species with extinction.
The idea of destroying vast swaths of rainforest in the name of the environment will strike most people as insane. Yet that is exactly what is happening; institutionalised demand for biofuels is causing major land-use change, damaging biodiversity and undermining the earth's ability to absorb carbon dioxide. In our small, incompetent and well-meaning way, our country is contributing to biofuel madness.
Under the terms of the RTFO, about 2.5bn litres of biofuel will be needed every year to meet the government's target. In the absence of sustainability criteria, the inescapable consequence is that the RTFO will simply suck in imports from plantations that contribute to carbon emissions and the destruction of habitats. There is worrying evidence that existing biofuel programmes are already doing significant harm, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil. Indeed, the UN has estimated that virtually all Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests will be destroyed by 2022 as a result of clearances for palm cultivation, which is the world's number one source of biofuel. Voices from within the UN have also expressed concern about "biofuel refugees", highlighting the forced dispersal of indigenous people and the human rights implications of the policy.
It is disturbing that our government appears to be completely in the dark over the source and volume of current imports of biofuels. It confesses to being unaware of whether imports are causing damage. It is this kind of casual ignorance that informs the approach to the rapid expansion of biofuel use. We have heard a lot from this government about evidence-based policy-making; but what we are looking at is ignorance-based policy-making. It could be a first.
There is a case for biofuels. Fuels derived from sustainably grown crops have the potential to make real savings in greenhouse gas emissions while providing farmers with new markets.
We need an ambitious, forward-looking policy to encourage investment in the next generation of biofuels, and a government prepared to drive the market not just for sustainable biofuels, but for green technology across the board.
All that accompanies the RTFO today is a "reporting requirement"
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