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This is the item from the July 2 report. Bush wants to remove all the tariffs on biofuel from Brazil, right?
Head of the World Bank is Neo-conservative Robert Zoellick, who signed the 1998 paper advocating the invasion of Iraq.
Commit to re-examine policies towards bio-fuels in the G8 countries:
7. Agree on action in the US and Europe to ease subsidies, mandates and tariffs on bio-fuels that are derived from maize and oilseeds; accelerate the development of second generation cellulosic products.
[more]
Biofuels: The Promise and the Risks
World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development
Biofuel production has pushed up feedstock prices. The clearest example is maize, whose price rose by over 60 percent from 2005 to 2007, largely because of the U.S. ethanol program combined with reduced stocks in major exporting countries. Feedstock supplies are likely to remain constrained in the near term. However, unless there is another major surge in energy prices, it is likely that feedstock prices will rise less in the long term. Farmers will respond to higher prices by increasing the planted areas and supply of these feedstocks. At the same time, rising prices will lower the demand for feedstocks because of the falling profitability of producing biofuels at these higher prices.
Rising agricultural crop prices caused by demand for biofuels have come to the forefront in the debate about a potential conflict between food and fuel. The grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol (240 kilograms of maize for 100 liters of ethanol) could feed one person for a year; this shows how food and fuel compete. Rising prices of staple crops can cause significant welfare losses for the poor, most of whom are net buyers of staple crops. But many other poor producers, who are net sellers of these crops, would benefit from higher prices.
Future biofuel technology may rely on dedicated energy crops and on agricultural and timber waste instead of food crops, potentially reducing the pressure on food crop prices. But second-generation technologies to convert cellulose from these waste products into sugars distilled to produce ethanol or to gasify biomass are not yet commercially viable—and will not be for several years. Moreover, some competition for land and water between dedicated energy crops and food crops will likely remain.
[and the environmental benefits]?
Potential environmental benefits. Environmental benefits need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, because they depend on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the cultivation of feedstocks, the biofuels production process, and the transport of biofuels to markets. And a change in land use, such as cutting forests or draining peatland to produce feedstock such as oil palm, can cancel the GHG emission savings for decades, according to the 2006 EU Biofuel Strategy.
[It looks like carbon trading is the only viable policy to balance the environmental harm, and GHG emissions.]
Perhaps they were hoping no one would read it.
