Re: on the Christian Aid report

[Dr.Samai Jai-Indr]

Sabrina,

 

Thanks for the link to the report.

 

By the time we can turn the tide of views against biofuels,

the narrow window of opportunity gets even narrower.

By the time words can be translated into actions,

so many poor lives will be lost along the way.

Human history is full of such drama.

The poor will always foot the bill of all the conflicts,

be it, conflict of view or conflict of arms.

 

Regards,

Samai@sea

2009/12/9 Sabrina Shaw <sab...@iisd.org>

Dear Dr. Samai,
Yes, finally some balance in a the US media - although provided by a Malaysian former industry minister.

The Christian Aid report released in August 09 is a feather in your cap. You are REALLY going to like the conclusions ... now you have a powerful ally in the UK of all places!
http://www.christianaid.org.uk/images/biofuels-report-09.pdf

"Conclusions
Arguments around bifouels often seek to identify "good" or "bad" biofuels buit, while some are self-evidently more useful than others, the solution cannot be presented so simply. The problem is not with the crop or the fuel - it is with the policy framwork aroudn biofuel production and use.

So far, it is evident that most of these policies have been mistaken - leading to biofuels that increase carbon emissions, drive up food prices, encourage the displacement of farmers, provoke confict and labour abuses and damage the environment, all at great financial cost.

Cristian Aid believes that biofuels production needs a new vision, one that does not focus on supplying significant quantities of transport fuels for industrial markets. Instead, production should be greared towards energy self-sufficierncy, rural development and a shift towards decentralised, clean energy for the energy-poor in developing countries."

Sweet!

Cheers,
Sabrina

________________________________________
From: laofab On Behalf Of Sabrina Shaw [sab...@iisd.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 21:10
To: lao...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [LaoFAB] Palm oil up against a trade wolf in green sheep's clothing

Dear Laofabers,
The "Green neocolonialism" reference in this recent NY Times article on palm oil and the environment-related trade barriers to its entry in the EU reminds one of the debate on trade and environment in the World Trade Organisation in the early 1990s.
It revolved around the concept that tariffs on trade were being removed, permitting market access for developing country exports. Yet, this newly acquired market access resulting from the Uruguay Round trade negotiations concluded in 1986 were being eroded by non-tariff barriers to trade - labelling, certification, as well as various assorted multitudes of technical standards (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations ... in the guise of environmental protection.
Hence, developing countries claimed that this was in effect obliging poor countries to adopt rich country environmental preferences and concerns if they wished to trade. Eco protectionism, or green neocolonialism.

This piece in the NY Times is written by a former Malaysian Minister of Industry - so there is a distinct bias here. Yet, the point is valid from a trade and development perspective.

Interesting statement he asserts at the end -
"Asian governments and businesses are not asking for much — simply the chance to develop their natural resources as Europe did for hundreds of years."

In the context of the Copenhagen climate conference, however, it may seem like too much to expect.

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the 2008 collapse in confidence with biofuels, there is a more cautious, but definitely more nuanced debate emerging on the need to examine with greater specificity more efficient use of biomass for energy, particularly in the case of small holder palm oil.

And that this debate in developing countries is separate and distinct from the environmentally destructive, economically costly and trade distorting subsidised biofuels sector in the US (corn ethanol) and the EU (rapeseed biodiesel).
See the August 2009 Christian Aid report
http://www.christianaid.org.uk/images/biofuels-report-09.pdf

Cheers,
Sabrina

Sabrina Shaw
Ph.D. Candidate, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
Associate, International Institute for Sustainable Development
SCS Trencho 4, Conj. 5, #525
Brasilia D.F. 70200-004
Brazil
tel: (55 61) 3316-6161 (#525)
cel: (55 61) 8506 3523
e-mail: <mailto:Sab...@iisd.org> Sab...@iisd.org<mailto:Sab...@iisd.org>
Skype: sabrinashaw

Green Neocolonialism<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07iht-edyaik.html>
By LIM KENG YAIK

Published: October 6, 2009


Europe is wrong to paint Asia's palm oil industry as a global ecological threat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07iht-edyaik.html

Climate negotiators meeting in Bangkok this week in preparation for the Copenhagen climate summit in December seem no closer to an agreement on how best to balance economic growth and protection of the environment.

One obstacle comes from Europe, where an alliance of green NGOs, industry and policymakers has targeted Asia’s palm oil industry as a global villain and is threatening a trade war. These critics are wrong on the economics and the ecology.

In June, the European Council issued guidelines on the Renewable Energy Directive, which was adopted in December 2008. Its purpose is to encourage European consumers to use greener, sustainable sources of energy, such as biofuels. This is a fine idea in principle. But as it turns out, the directive is a trade wolf in green sheep’s clothing.

Europe is one of the world’s leading producers of biofuels, mostly made from rapeseed oil. It accounts for two-thirds of the global market, with Germany as one of the largest producers.

Asian producers are increasingly important players in the global biofuels trade. Asian biofuels are a byproduct of palm oil, a sustainable vegetable oil and food staple for which demand is rapidly growing in Asia. Palm oil biofuel cannot be produced in quantities that will rival oil-based fuels, but it is cheaper than rapeseed.

So, in predictable fashion, Europe’s agricultural industries are defaulting to their traditional practice when a cheaper and better product becomes available to European consumers. They have inserted trade barriers in the Renewable Energy Directive to restrict imports of biofuel. And, as usual, they are pretending that the barriers serve another purpose — in this case preserving forest biodiversity.

This joins the protectionist play to a broader campaign to discredit palm oil. European policy-makers echo arguments made by Western environmental NGOs that biofuels from Asia are environmentally troublesome because palm oil plantations reduce forest biodiversity.

These claims do not withstand scrutiny. Forest biodiversity is achieved by reserving areas of natural forest. The Worldwide Fund for Nature says that around 10 percent of the world’s forests needs to be conserved to achieve this goal. More than half of Malaysia’s land and one quarter of Indonesia’s, the two largest oil palm producers, are already set aside.

Conversely, the WWF target in forest preservation has not been reached in most of the European Union. In Germany, land reserved to conserve natural forest is just 4 percent. Where are the demands to restrict E.U. trade to protect Europe’s forest biodiversity?

Furthermore, Asian biofuel is significantly more sustainable than European biofuel. It also uses much less land to produce the same amount of energy and generates 10 times as much energy as is required to produce it. By contrast, biofuels produced from European rapeseed generate only four times as much energy relative to the input.

Despite this, European biofuel producers and environmental NGOs are pressuring the E.U. to increase the trade coercion in the Renewable Energy Directive by restricting imports if something called “Indirect Land Use Change” occurs when they are produced.

Let me be plain about what this means. The conversion of forest land to produce higher value products like palm oil, cocoa or rubber is the leading means of reducing poverty in most developing countries. The idea being toyed with in Brussels is to use the threat of trade sanctions to pressure countries into giving up the leading anti-poverty tool.

Research from the Stern Review showed that the economic benefit to poor countries of growing palm oil vastly exceeded the value of any other use of the land. The World Bank, for example, found that developing palm oil was one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty in Indonesia. In Malaysia, palm oil was developed to create livelihoods for poor, landless workers.

Asian governments and businesses are not asking for much — simply the chance to develop their natural resources as Europe did for hundreds of years.

There is a historical tendency in Europe to seek to mold others in its image. This was part of what some styled the “white man’s burden” during the colonial era. Has this tendency reasserted itself as the Green man’s burden?

Lim Keng Yaik was Malaysian minister of primary industries, 1986-2004, and a founder of the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters.


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