Biofuels and sustainability: A view from Brazil

More recently, there’s been a focus on the environmental impact of biofuels feedstock production because of land use change. It would obviously make no sense to jeopardize the existence of sensitive biomas by encouraging the growing of palm trees in peat lands or the cultivation of sugarcane in the Amazon rainforest for biofuel production. But should we extend the concept of biodiversity protection to all grasslands, as suggested by some environmentalists, and draft legislative initiatives? While this would imply a prohibition against the use of the Brazilian cerrado to produce biofuels feedstock, it would also affect set aside lands and pastures in the European Union and in the United States. And if these areas are to be considered highly sensitive, their use to grow feedstock for heating - such as cereals - should also be banned, as well as any other arable crops since the same supposed loss of biodiversity will occur no matter what the final purpose of the agricultural raw material grown on these lands. However, blames are unfairly concentrated on biofuels as no critic dares to condemn the increase of food production in a world where more than 800 million people go hungry.

New criticisms have recently emerged regarding the potential loss of carbon stocks that could result from land use changes and this preoccupation is clearly legitimate. The use of biofuels would be of no interest if their production releases more carbon in the atmosphere than the CO2 emissions they avoid by replacing fossil fuels. But with the view of reducing global GHG emissions, no production of any feedstock, for biofuels or any other uses, should take place in areas where carbon stocks are substantial. Before banning the use of specific areas, sound scientific studies should measure the quantity of carbon that is stocked in each of the current and potential production areas. This should help to establish the carbon balance that would result if these areas were used for the production of feedstock. Comprehensive calculations do not currently exist, so it cannot be taken for granted that land conversion will create a “carbon debt” or that agricultural expansion will necessarily take place in sensitive areas. Unfortunately, this is the kind of generalization that some academics do not hesitate to establish despite the existence of various counter examples. The use of degraded pastures for sugarcane production in Brazil, for instance, generates a “carbon credit” as sugarcane captures larger amounts of carbon than the quantities stocked in this type of land.