New International Panel
Launches Wide-Ranging Assessment on Environmental
Pros and Cons of Crop-Based Fuels
Nairobi, 16 October
2009 - A far more sophisticated approach
needs to be taken when developing biofuels
as an environmentally-friendly energy option
a new report concludes.
Governments should fit
biofuels into an overall energy, climate,
land-use, water and agricultural strategy
if their deployment is to benefit society,
the economy and the environment as a whole.
The report, the first
by the United Nations Environment Programme's
(UNEP) International Panel for Sustainable
Resource Management, says some first generation
biofuels such as ethanol from sugar cane
can have positive impacts in terms of greenhouse
gas emissions.
As currently practiced
in a country such as Brazil, it can lead
to emissions reductions of between 70 percent
and well over 100 percent when substituted
for petrol.
However, the way in
which biofuels are produced matters in determining
whether they are leading to more or less
greenhouse gas emissions. Conditions under
which production of biofuels does lead to
higher emissions have been identified in
the report.
The production and use
of biodiesel from palm oil on deforested
peatlands in the tropics is cited. It can
lead to significant increases in greenhouse
gas emissions-up to 2,000 percent or more
when compared with fossil fuels.
This is mainly as a
result of carbon releases from the soils
and land. However, a positive contribution
to greenhouse gas emissions can arise if
the palm oil or soya beans are instead grown
on abandoned or degraded land.
The report Towards Sustainable
Production and Use of Resources: Assessing
Biofuels is based on a detailed review of
published research up to mid-2009 as well
as the input of independent experts world-wide.
It has been written
to assist governments and industry in making
sustainable choices in an area that over
the past few years has become deeply divided
while triggering sharply polarized views.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and Executive Director of the UN
Environment Programme, which hosts the Resource
Panel, said : "Biofuels are neither
a panacea nor a pariah but like all technologies
they represent both opportunities and challenges."
"Therefore a more
sophisticated debate is urgently needed
which is what this first report by the Panel
is intended to provide. On one level, it
is a debate about which energy crops to
grow and where and also about the way different
countries and biofuel companies promote
and manage the production and conversion
of plant materials for energy purposes-some
clearly are climate friendly while others
are highly questionable," added Mr.
Steiner.
"However, it is
also a choice about how humanity best manages
its finite land bank and balances a range
of competing interests in a world of six
billion people, rising to over nine billion
by 2050," he said.
"The report makes
it clear that biofuels have a future role,
but also underlines that there may be other
options for combating climate change, improving
rural livelihoods and achieving sustainable
development that may, or may not involve
turning ever more crops and crop wastes
into liquid fuels," he explained.
"The European Commission
has been the firm supporter of the Resource
Panel right from its outset. It is part
of our long-term strategy on sustainable
management of natural resources in providing
authoritative and independent scientific
advice to underpin policies and with a global
perspective. The report on biofuels will
help us in designing and implementing targets
and sustainability criteria for the use
of biofuels," said Timo Timo Mäkelä
of the European Commission.
The report by the Resource
Panel, headed by Professor Ernst Ulrich
von Weizsäcker and written by scientists
including Dr Stefan Bringezu of the body's
Biofuels Working Group, for example notes
that:
Generating electricity
at local power stations using wood, straw,
seed oils and other crop or waste materials
"is generally more energy efficient
that converting biomass to liquid fuels".
Land, including abandoned
land can be used for energy crops but could
equally be used for re-afforestation or
solar power which the report argues may
be more efficient for turning sunlight into
energy.
Meanwhile, in transport,
modal shifts and higher fuel efficiency
standards and the development of alternative
technologies such as plug-in vehicles could
dramatically reduce emissions in their own
right.
The report points out
that in the United States the Energy Independence
Act requires fuel efficiency improvements
of 40 percent for cars and light trucks
by 2020. Similarly, Japan is set to adopt
a 20 percent fuel efficiency improvement
to be implemented by 2015 with car makers
there claiming that 80 percent of vehicles
already meet the proposed standard.
Professor Weizsäcker
said: "There are also wider life cycle
issues that need to be factored into government
policy decisions and in some cases these
require more urgent research. Growing energy
crops can involve increased use of fertilizers
which in turn have implications for water
quality. Fertilizer use also increases emissions
of N20 which is a powerful greenhouse gas
in its own right."
"Using abandoned
or so called waste land for biofuels might
be a sensible option, but it may also have
implications for biodiversity and greenhouse
gas emissions might be better cut by forestry
schemes,' he added.
Dr. Bringezu said: "If
the world's cropland is used to feed a growing
population and one increasingly consuming
meat, any additional demand for energy crops
will almost inevitably increase pressure
on grasslands, savannahs and forests. This
will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions
as well as rising losses of biodiversity.
Using wastes and residues represents one
safer and more sustainable path out of this
dilemma."
Key Findings From The
Report:
Biofuel Market
World ethanol production
for transport fuels tripled between 2000
and 2007 from 17 billion liters to more
than 52 billion liters.
Biodiesel expanded 11
fold from less than a billion liters to
11 billion liters.
Biofuels provide 1.8
percent of transport fuels.
Investment in biofuels
production capacity exceeded US$4 billion
worldwide in 2007.
International trade
has been small, about three billion liters
in 2006/07, but is expected to grow rapidly
in countries like Brazil where in 2008 five
billion liters were exported.
Land-Use Changes and
Related Impacts of First Generation Biofuels
Global cropland will
expand only to feed a growing world population
with an increasing demand for more protein
rich food from animals. Any additional demand
for non-food biomass crops will add to the
pressure of converting natural land.
Global land use for
biofuel crops was about two percent of global
cropland in 2008, or about 36 million hectares.
First generation biofuels
include, for example, ethanol from sugar
cane or corn or biodiesel from rapeseed,
soya or palm oil.
Globally about 118 to
508 million hectares of cropland would be
needed to meet 10 percent of global transport
fuel demand by 2030 if first generation
biofuels are used.
On the one hand, these
biofuels could potentially substitute 0.17
to 0.76 billion tonnes of fossil CO2. On
the other hand, the associated land-use
change would lead to additional 0.75 to
1.83 billion tonnes of CO2.
Altogether, there could
be rather more greenhouse gas emissions
for the coming decades due to energy crop-based
biofuels.
Land-use change for
biofuel crops cannot be avoided by product
standards and certification alone, as long
as global demand for biomass is growing.
Certified production would drive non-certified
production, particularly for food, to other
areas.
Climate Pros and Cons
of Different Biofuels
Whether a biofuel is
climate-friendly or contributes to climate
change depends on numerous factors, basically
whether it is based on crops or production
residues and waste. The use of the latter
is usually beneficial for the environment,
requires no additional land and also provides
economic benefits.
The growing and conversion
processes from biomass to fuel determine
the environmental performance.
Brazil's sugar cane-to-ethanol
industry is considered to have a positive
climate benefit because and in part it uses
wastes known as bagasse to power the processing
and to also generate electricity for the
national grid.
Bioethanol from corn
can be less climate-friendly in cases where
fossil fuels are used in the process of
converting the crop to liquid fuel. Depending
on the efficiency of modern mills and other
factors, it actually leads to a nearly 60
per cent cut in CO2 emissions when compared
with gasoline, or a five percent increase
in green house gas emissions.
Palm oil biodiesel can
reduce emissions when compared to fossil
fuels by 80 percent. But if the palm oil
is grown on cropland from cleared tropical
forests, greenhouse gas emissions can be
up to 800 percent higher.
And if the land use
was cleared peat forests the emissions increases
over using fossil fuels can rise to 2,000
percent.
Examples of other beneficial
biofuels are biomethane from manure, with
emissions savings of over 170 percent and
second generation ethanol produced from
agricultural and forestry wastes- savings
in the region of 80 percent to 90 percent
over petrol.
Jatropha, an energy
crop being recommended in drylands in India
and across Africa, can generate greenhouse
gas savings if grown on degraded land but
if grown on shrubland this can increase
emissions through land use change. However,
this needs to be balanced with the possibility
to satisfy energy needs that are currently
satisfied largely with traditional biomass
use, which often leads to deforestation
- again with an impact on climate change.
There are other impact
categories beyond climate change that need
to be assessed. The report highlights impacts
on water quality and quantity and biodiversity.
The Way Forward
The report calls for
governments to consider a variety of measures
and for additional research including:
Development of harmonized
product standards for biofuels based on
internationally-recognized life cycle-assessments-ones
that factor in wider environmental aspects
such as greenhouse gas emissions linked
with fertilizers, impacts on water and implications
for land use.
Reconsideration of current
biofuel mandates, targets and quota in order
to limit the demand to levels which can
sustainably be supplied - considering impacts
for land use globally through targets for
national use.
Measures to limit the
expansion of arable land into high-value
natural ecosystems, such as forests and
areas with high biodiversity. Brazil, for
example, is developing a zoning system for
palm oil production that distinguishes between
suitable land and land of high conservation
value.
More comprehensive assessments
of the amount of degraded land in the world
that might be suitable for biofuel production
set against its other potential uses such
as for food production or forestry or natural
regeneration, also considering the economic
viability of biofuels produced on degraded
land.
Action to sustainably
boosted yields in currently low-yielding
countries and regions such as Africa so
as to produce more crops per hectare of
land for both food and energy use.
Research into the environmental
performance of advanced (often referred
to as second and third) generation biofuels
such as those derived from wastes and sources
such as switch grass and marine algae.
Research to compare
the relative advantages in site specific
locations of stationary power generation
versus converting biomass into liquid fuels-assessments
too of the relative merits of biofuels versus
solar power on the same land.
Introduce policies that
reduce overall fuel consumption in countries
such as through fuel taxes and fuel efficiency
standards-for example, the European Union's
Directive on energy end-use efficiency and
energy services says every member state
must improve its energy efficiency beyond
the trend by one percent annually.
Notes to Editors
The report Towards Sustainable
Production and Use of Resources: Assessing
Biofuels is available at www.unep.fr, http://www.unep.fr/scp/rpanel/
and http://www.unep.fr/energy/bioenergy
The International Panel
on Sustainable Resource Management was established
by UNEP in 2007. It compromises over 20
eminent scientists and researchers and is
headed by Professor von Weizsacker and has
a steering committee consisting of representatives
from governments, the EC, UNEP and other
organizations.
The objectives of the
Resource Panel are to:
a.) Provide independent,
coherent and authoritative scientific assessments
of policy relevance on the sustainable use
of natural resources and in particular their
environmental impacts over the full life
cycle;
b.) Contribute to a
better understanding of how to decouple
economic growth from environmental degradation.
http://www.unep.fr/scp/rpanel/members.htm