Converting land for biofuel worsens global warming

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Converting land for biofuel worsens global warming: study

08/02/2008 10h10

 

Indonesian workers load palm fruit into a truck before sending them to

a palm oil factory in Serdang Bedagai

©AFP/FileWASHINGTON (AFP) - Clearing raw land to produce biofuels

actually contributes to global warming by emitting large amounts of

greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, researchers have warned.

 

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new croplands carved into

rainforests, savannas, wetlands or grasslands would easily surpass the

overall amount of CO2 emissions reduced through the use of biofuels,

according to a report in the February 8 edition of Science.

 

" If you're trying to mitigate global warming, it simply does not make

sense to convert land for biofuels production, " said Joe Fargione, a

founder of private environment protection agency the Nature

Conservancy and co-author of the study.

 

" All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either

directly or indirectly, " he said.

 

" Global agriculture is already producing food for six billion people.

Producing food-based biofuel, too, will require that still more land

be converted to agriculture. "

 

Converting land to grow corn, sugar cane or soy beans -- crops used in

the production of biofuels -- creates a " biofuel carbon debt " by

releasing 17 to 420 times as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the

greenhouse gas reductions which the biofuels provide by displacing

fossil fuels.

 

Carbon is stored in dead trees and plants as well as in the soil, and

naturally seeps into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Converting

native habitats to cropland increases the release of CO2 into the air,

the report said.

 

It would take years, and in some cases centuries, before biofuels

derived from crops on converted land would lead to a net reduction of

greenhouse gases, according to the report.

 

The researchers calculated that in Indonesia, where wetlands are being

converted to grow palm oil to produce biofuels, it will take 423 years

before biofuel CO2 emission savings would repay the carbon debt caused

by the land conversion.

 

" We don't have proper incentives in place because landowners are

rewarded for producing palm oil and other products but not rewarded

for carbon management, " said report co-author Stephen Polasky, an

applied economics professor at University of Minnesota.

 

" This creates incentives for excessive land clearing and can result in

large increases in carbon emissions. "

 

An incentive for carbon sequestration or a penalty for carbon

emissions is needed in order to slow CO2 emissions and environmental

destruction, Polasky said.

 

The researchers noted that strong growth in the demand for corn-based

ethanol in the United States has led to the increasing destruction of

the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

 

To address the ethanol demand, US farmers have stopped rotating corn

crops with soy, leaving their Brazilian counterparts to produce more

soybeans to meet rising global demand, resulting in further Amazon

deforestation, they said.

 

The report stresses that certain biofuels do not contribute to global

warming because they leave the natural ecosystem intact, and that

obtaining biofuels from biomass waste or forestry products such as

wood chips causes less harm to the environment and is the aim of

several scientists.

 

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius