Sustainable Biofuels Consensus sees key role for trade

A group of 17 experts invited by the Rockefeller Foundation to analyse the possibility of fostering free global trade in biofuels has spelled out how such commerce could help encourage the sustainable production and use of bioenergy and stimulate investment needed in many impoverished countries.

The experts, from 12 different countries, gathered in late March in the Rockefeller Foundation’s study and conference centre in Bellagio, Italy. Over four days, they produced a “Sustainable Biofuels Consensus”, including eight key recommendations, which they hope will be taken up by policy makers, industry, NGOs and other market players.

The participants all attended in a personal capacity. They included Suzanne Hunt, who co-ordinated publication of the book Biofuels for Transportation while at the Worldwatch Institute as well as lead author of the GBEP Report A Review of the Current State of Bioenergy Development in G8 +5 Countries; Uwe R. Fritsche, co-ordinator of energy and climate protection at Germany’s Oeko Institut; Plinio Nastari, president of Brazilian consultant Datagro; and Sergio C. Trindade, director of science and technology at International Fuel Technology.

They highlighted the scale and urgency of task at hand, given the investments required and the need to take action on climate change, while also addressing the public and often unfavourable debate about bioenergy in recent months.

“The current negative image of biofuels in some quarters, provoked in part by a rather complex set of national public support schemes, is threatening the fulfillment of their promise and must be addressed,” the 17 experts wrote in a joint document. “Paramount to a solution is an orderly and defined schedule for elimination of subsidies, tariffs, import quotas, export taxes and non-tariff barriers in parallel with the gradual implementation of sustainable biofuels mandates.”

The authors of the Sustainable Biofuels Consensus also drew attention to the need to work within existing frameworks – for example the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Global Bioenergy Partnership – to achieve an integrated policy approach on issues such as sustainability criteria and life-cycle analysis.

 

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