Over 18 million hectares of land in Africa has been turned over to biofuel companies to help meet biofuel targets. These targets are making global hunger worse. They can divert large amounts of arable crops, especially those used for food, into fuel production instead. This is one way in which food prices are higher than they need be. They also encourage foreign companies to oust farmers in poor countries from their land.
The UK Department for International Development has never spoken out against these targets. This may be down to the fact the UK Government along with the European Union have set and are responsible for the targets for the amount of biofuels to be put into our petrol and diesel.
It was originally thought that biofuels would be a solution to climate change but, evidence has shown that most of these actually release more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuels they’re designed to replace. Government policy needs to catch up with scientific evidence and move away from this false solution.
Although the UK Government froze the targets for fuel last year, the European Union is still a factor in this and all development ministers in the EU will be meeting in May this year. Its important they all make a strong public statement against biofuels as the social impacts in poor countries are just too great. The Renewable Energy Directive contains the biofuels targets and the European Commission must be told to scrap this target to protect the lives of millions of people.
The Department for International Development has refrained from taking a major role in UK Government discussions on this, despite hundreds of millions of people potentially being forced into hunger by biofuels targets.
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- Food Or Fuel? Researchers Critical Of Biofuel Targets (greencarreports.com)
