The coming of age of biofuels is happening against the background of growing awareness of the urgent need for changing the present unsustainable pattern of energy use, characterized by a profligate (mis)use of abundant and cheap fossil fuels. It is helped by the recent sharp increase in oil prices.
Resorting to bioproducts other than biofuels may also result in indirect fossil energy substitution. Green fertilizers, bamboo and timber building materials, natural fibers, plastics and other products of green chemistry are less fossil energy intensive than cement, metals and petrochemicals. More generally, we ought to explore the whole potential of a modern, knowledge-intensive, biomass-based civilization running on solar energy captured by photosynthesis.
Producing biofuels is thus only a part of a comprehensive energy strategy. The addition of ethanol to gasoline and of biodiesel to diesel can reduce the consumption of oil-based liquid fuels in the near term and, for assisting in the reduction of exclusive dependency on oil-based liquid fuels at a later date. However, biofuels should not be viewed as a panacea.
Energy security, food security and provision of opportunities for decent work through rural development are to be viewed as paramount and closely interlinked goals. In the globalization age, national development strategies still have a crucial role to play, as envisioned by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in several occasions.
It is up to each country to evaluate its needs and potentialities with respect to the production and/or imports of biofuels, within a strategy of gradual substitution and phasing out of oil and, possibly, other fossil fuels. Some relevant questions for the formulation of national policies are still without an answer. Hence, it is important to investigate how other countries have answered them, by exchanging experiences without necessarily looking for readymade models to be replicated. UN affiliated bodies – the FAO, UNEP and UNCTAD – are at present engaged in organizing a forum for such exchanges.

By: I. Sachs (UNCTAD)

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