PRESS RELEASE EMBARGO UNTIL 12:00 AM GMT, 17 NOVEMBER 2007
Governments must reject ‘Biofuels’ and other False Solutions to Climate Change
In reaction to today’s launch of the synthesis report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in Spain, the
Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide coalition of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations, called upon governments to
reject so-called ‘biofuels’ and other false solutions to climate change like carbon trading. It is now becoming cῬear
that these solutions may in fact make climate change worse, not better, and that they have many other serious social and
environmental impacts. (1)
The IPCC report again highlights that climate change is already having devastating impacts upon the economies and
livelihoods of people all over the world. Indigenous Peoples and other vulnerable and economically marginalized peoples
suffer the most dramatic consequences of climate change, as they are directly dependent upon the forests, drylands and
polar ecosystems that are being destroyed by droughts, forest fires and other effects of global warming. However, these
communities are also the main victims of the false solutions that some governments and high profile advocates are
proposing, like large-scale ˜biofuels™, (or ˜agrofuels™ as most social movements refer to them) and carbon investments
in forestry projects.
Dr. Miguel Lovera, chairperson of the Global Forest Coalition, said:
“Here in Paraguay the soya boom that has been triggered by agrofuels means that farmers are now racing to clear the
forests and plant soy. What is the point of planting a crop that is supposed to help stop climate change, when it
involves ripping out the lungs of the world and destroying the homes and livelihoods of our forest peoles, including
our last communities of Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation? The IPCC recognizes that conserving forests is
one of the most effective and economically efficient ways of mitigating climate change but governments don™t seem to be
listening: instead of banning deforestation, they are actually subsidizing ῴhe production of these agrofuels crops which
are making deforestation worse all over the world. (2)
In Mato Grosso in the Brazilian Amazon, renewed soy expansion caused deforestation to increase by around 84% between
September 2006 and September 2007. Soy expansion in South America is mainly caused by the ethanol boom in the US, which
has triggered US soy farmers to switch to corn.
“As the main problems are caused by the indirect impacts of agrofuels, proposals to certify ‘sustainable biofuels’ just
won’t work, as they can’t control these indirect impacts” emphasizes Dr. Rachel Smolker of the Global Justice Ecology
Project in Vermont (US).
“Second generation agrofuels, like genetically modified trees, will also cause a myriad of environmental and social
problems, including the replacement of forests with vast monocultures of tree plantations, planted to fuel cars” she
adds.
The Global Forest Coalition also opposes proposals to finance reduced deforestation through the international carbon
market, as such offsets do not contribute anything to mitigating climate change: every ton carbon stored in forests will
imply an extra ton of carbon emissions in the North. Moreover, they form an inequitable and unpredictable source of
financial support. Carbon offset projects in countries like Uganda have already led to devastating impacts on local
communities. (3)
“Many Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific face the possibility of losing everything in a short space of time – their
homes, their territories and their livelihoods -, because of rising sea-levels. We insist that governments do something
now to stop this ethnocide. They urgently need to invest in real forest conservation (4), sustainῡble transport systems
and solar and wind energy stresses Sandy Gauntlett, chairperson of the Pacific Indiῧenous Peoples Environment
Coalition.
ends