UN bioenergy certification

The United Nations (UN) unveiled guidelines on Tuesday to tackle the rapidly growing bioenergy industry, which it warned could threaten the availability of adequate food supplies.

As environment and development ministers from around the world prepare to meet on Wednesday for the UN commission on sustainable development, UN-Energy, released its report ’Sustainable energy: a framework for decision makers’.

Among the recommendations by UN-Energy was that crops that require high fossil energy inputs - such as conventional fertilizers - and valuable farm land should be avoided.

But it also warned that sustainable energy crops could have a negative impact if these replace primary forests, ‘resulting in large releases of carbon from the soil and forest biomass that negate any benefits of biofuels for decades.’

The report called for the creation of an international bioenergy certification scheme, including greenhouse gas certification, to ensure that products meet environmental standards ‘all the way from the fields to the fuel tanks.’

Biofuels - energy squeezed from all kinds of living matter, such as sugar, corn or rapeseed oil - burn cleaner and are fast gaining popularity around the world amid high oil prices and a battle against global warming.

Global production of biofuels has doubled in the past five years and is likely to double again in the next four years, UN-Energy said. In March, the US, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and the European commission announced the creation of the international biofuels forum, which aims to increase global production and use of biofuels.

Brazil is the top producer of ethanol from sugar cane, while the US holds the same position for corn and together they make up 70 per cent of the global market.

Gustavo Best, senior energy coordinator at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, told a news conference that the recommendations were needed because the industry ‘is so fast and so disorganized and so misinformed.’