Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Jean Ziegler, United Nations independent expert on the right to food, has called the production of biofuels a "crime against humanity" because of the food shortages and price inflation that results. He recommends a five-year moratorium, by which time "it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste" and not food crops.

Oxfam has recently criticized the European Union (EU) for mandating that transportation fuels have to be blended with ten per cent biofuels. "In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled," said Robert Bailey from Oxfam. In the United States, a new industry group, Renewable Fuels Now, has been formed to address what they consider misconceptions about ethanol. "The ethanol industry has been on the receiving end of a lot of hot sticks in the eye, and they have just been taking it," says spokesman Randolph Court. "They don't want to keep taking it anymore."

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have grown 35 per cent faster than expected since 2000, according to an international team of scientists. Three factors are held responsible: global economic growth; an increase in carbon intensity; and a deterioration in the ability of land and ocean to absorb carbon from the air.

"Fifty years ago, for every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, 600kg were removed by land and ocean sinks. However, in 2006, only 550kg were removed per tonne and that amount is falling," said Pep Canadell of the Global Carbon Project. Collaborator Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia and British Antarctic Survey concludes that "the decline in global sink efficiency suggests that stabilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide is even more difficult to achieve than previously thought."

Environmental activists have warned that developing countries will be hampered in fighting climate change if they exploit their natural resources to cover foreign debts. "There is a need to resolve odious debts in developing countries," the declaration from a coalition of Indonesian and international non-governmental organizations states. "The repayment of debts of developing countries has for a long time been made at the expense of natural resources, leaving communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate change," it continues.

The coalition calls on rich countries to promote green lifestyles. "We can't afford to maintain a position where the lifestyles of the rich are not up for negotiation," said coalition spokeswoman Farah Sofa, deputy director of Walhi Indonesia. "We must live simply so that others may simply live." Citing the broader environmental risks, the group opposes the use of nuclear power, genetically-modified trees and biofuels in responding to global warming. The coalition's declaration was presented at a ministerial meeting on climate change in Bogor, Indonesia.