Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, said on Thursday that biofuels were needed to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels. Increased consumer awareness, he said, would eventually force producers of palm oil and soya used in biofuels to adopt sustainable production.
Environmental groups told a meeting on biofuels in Madrid this week that the EU move requiring all transport fuels to have a 5.75 per cent biofuel content by 2010 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions was counterproductive because rainforests were being burnt to clear land for the energy crops.
The carbon dioxide emissions from forest fires in Indonesia and Brazil could outweigh the emissions predicted to be reduced from the use of biofuels in diesel and other fuels in Europe, the environmental groups said.
Mr Steiner, who attended a meeting on business and the environment in Singapore on Thursday, suggested such efforts to curb biofuel development reflected a “sledgehammer” approach and were based on “simplistic” views.
He said there were multiple causes for the burning of forest land, including clearing space for agriculture, and that biofuels should not be solely blamed for the problem.
Plant-based biofuels have been promoted to help fight global warming and south-east Asian countries, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, are expanding production of palm oil as a main ingredient in their production.
Palm oil plantation companies have been blamed for burning down forests in Indonesian Sumatra and Borneo that have contributed to a growing annual smog problem in the region. A recent UK-funded report found Indonesia was the world’s third-largest carbon emitter behind the US and China, largely because of the annual forest fires.
Mr Steiner acknowledged Indonesia could do more to protect forests and promote sustainable development. “The marketplace is moving faster [towards the use of biofuels] than the regulation governing their production,” he said.
But he said biofuel consumers in Europe and elsewhere were becoming aware of the problem and would demand that biofuel producers be certified as engaging in sustainable production.
Mr Steiner predicted that biofuel producers and governments will co-operate in establishing international standards to certify sustainable production.
A group of palm oil producers recently formed the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to set up a certification process, while palm oil producers in south-east Asia and soya producers in Brazil have established partnerships with environmental groups to develop sustainable criteria. “The private sector is picking up signals from the market more rapidly than governments,” Mr Steiner said.