Date published: 2008/02/23
The BBC says:
Biofuels should only be produced if they meet strict environmental standards, an international group of lawmakers have concluded.
The legislators said the fuels also had to deliver significant savings of greenhouse gas emissions.
If such criteria were met, they said there should be an urgent review of the tariffs that currently block imports into markets such as the EU and US.
...
Biofuels have become a highly controversial issue, with claims that the rapid expansion of energy crops could threaten global food security, and add further pressure to sensitive ecosystems including rainforests.It is also argued that in some cases the benefits to the climate of burning plant material instead of fossil fuels are outweighed by the energy needed to produce and transport biofuels, and by the release of carbon from soils by changes in land use.
All standard fare these days. Biofuels could turn out to be one of the largest disasters ever to hit the planet. Unfortunately, the BBC fails to identify who was in this "international group of lawmakers", with the exception of "Lord Jay, the former head of the British Foreign Office" (so not exactly a lawmaker). One has to assume these are not people with any real power.
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