[Biofuel] Over 145 environmental, development and social organizations call upon the EU to abandon biofuel targets.

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Dear Friends, Thank you for your support of this call to the EU.  Please send this Press Release about the Open letter onto your national Press contacts and email lists/networks.  Thank you.  Andrew for biofuelwatch   PRESS RELEASE February 8th, 2007 For immediate release   Joint Press Release from biofuelwatch and Corporate Europe Observatory   OVER 145 ENVIRONMENTAL, DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL ORGANISATIONS CALL UPON THE EU TO ABANDON BIOFUEL TARGETS   In the build up to the EU Conference of Energy Ministers next Monday February 12th that will discuss future EU energy strategy, over 145 European social and environmental organisations have sent out a strong call to the Council of the European Union, EU Commisioners and ministers to stop promoting rainforest destruction for biofuels.  The groups believe that a moratorium on biofuel targets is needed to protect natural forests and local communities in the global south.   In an Open Letter to the EU institutions and citizens (full text available in English at website: http://tinyurl.com/2vgtke, and in Spanish at: http://tinyurl.com/2hoov6). The letter was launched and signed by 19 organisations and individuals. It is open to further signatures, and in one week, a further 130 organisations have signed.  The regularly updated list of signatures can be found on www.biofuelwatch.org.uk.     Key points are: The proposed targets will amongst other things promote crops with poor greenhouse gas balances, trigger deforestation and loss of biodiversity and exacerbate local land use conflicts.   Not only is deforestation itself a major cause of CO2 emissions, but biodiesel from South East Asian palm oil (where most world palm oil currently originates), can be expected to cause between two and eight times as much CO2 emissions from damage to peat as the CO2 emissions from the fossil fuel diesel it replaces.   The EU Biofuels directive puts 20 Million hectares of rainforest in Indonesia at extreme risk.  If destroyed, and its associated peat land is drained, this could release 50 Billion tonnes of carbon – the equivalent of 6 years of current levels of carbon emissions.  When added to current extremely high levels of global fossil fuel emissions, it could take the planet over a climate tipping point.   Citizens of the producer countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cameroon already suffer the consequences of the current expansion of the monoculture crops that are increasingly used for biofuel production, like palm oil, soya and sugar cane.  These include increased destruction of biodiversity and rural livelihoods and further erosion of food security, with serious impacts on water, soil, and regional climate patterns. There are also human rights concerns including very poor working conditions and low wages, violent land conflicts, death and health crises due to the use of agrochemicals and deforestation.   Earlier this month, hundreds of Latin American NGOs, which are part of five networks, wrote an open letter to the EU in which they criticised the EU plans as presented by the commission: "It is most unlikely that Europe will ever achieve self- sufficiency in the production of biofuel from national production of energy crops and therefore it is very possible that this will be done at the expense of lands on which the food sovereignty of our countries depend".    The Indonesian NGO, Sawit Watch, which represents communities and workers affected by oil palm plantations, has sent their own open letter to European politicians, warning that Europe's Biofuel policy threatens to cause deforestation, more global warming, and further social conflict in Indonesia and that Europe must act to reduce, not boost the demand for palm oil.   EU ministers will discuss the EU energy package at their March 7th-8th meeting after which, the commission is expected to table a formal legislative proposal to increase the share of biofuels in transport to the minimum binding target of 10%.    Nina Holland from Corporate Europe Observatory says "we very much hope that ministers will listen to the concerns raised by Southern NGOs and to the strong evidence that our biofuel policy is making deforestation and global warming even worse.  We hope that they will abandon the proposals before them and instead agree policies which will reduce Europe's energy demand promote truly renewable energy forms.”   Biofuelwatch’s Almuth Ernsting says “these biofuels targets are likely to make the climate crisis worse – they essentially export EU transport emissions to the South in the form of emissions from deforestation and intensive agriculture-they may literally take us to a climate tipping point and disaster”.   Biofuelwatch’s Andrew Boswell says: “Aggressive targets for biofuels in the EU do not help the people in the South.  Such targets only benefit large industries that will displace small farmers and communities from their land to develop vast monoculture plantations.  The local people displaced this way face conflicts over their land, loss of indigenous food supplies, and crises in health and housing. “     For more information, please contact:   Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] +31-20-6127023 or +31-6-30285042   Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, [EMAIL PROTECTED], +44-1224-324797   Andrew Boswell, Biofuelwatch, [EMAIL PROTECTED];  +44-1603-613798, +44-7787-127881;     Further notes:    See also three earlier declarations critical of biofuels and signed by many groups from producer countries in the South:   “Palm oil for biofuels increases social conflicts and undermines land reform in Indonesia”, 26 January 2007, from Sawit Watch, an Indonesian Non-Government Organisation, group ofindividuals concern with adverse negative social and environmental impacts of oil palm plantation development in Indonesia. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/245   "We want food sovereignty, not biofuels", 4 January 2007, from Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations, Network for a GM free Latin America, Oilwatch South America, World Rainforest Movement, http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/EU_declaration.html http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/brussels-biofuels-push-met- sceptism/article-160789   "Biofuels - a disaster in the making", addressed at the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change, Nairobi, November 2006 http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/CCC/Nairobi/Disaster_Making.html

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