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The Canadian Parliament is currently considering Bill C-33, which provides a $2.2 billion subsidy for biofuels and requires that all gasoline include 5% biofuel content by 2010. The bill could come to third and final reading any day.
KAIROS’ own research into biofuels (also known as agrofuels), has raised very serious questions about their impact on the world’s food supply (see www.kairoscanada.org/e/resources/policyBriefing9Agrofuel0703.pdf ). Our partners in the global South have also become increasingly alarmed at how the global push for biofuels is impacting on issues such as land use, food sovereignty, and other human rights.
Furthermore, many studies have shown that biofuels’ capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is minimal at best. When the impact of deforestation is considered, the ecological devastation of agrofuels is possibly even worse than that caused by fossil fuels.
The agrofuel industry, aimed largely at supplying fuel for vehicles, is putting food further out of reach of millions of hungry people and has been called a "crime against humanity" by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler. (See below for more information).
Take action
The NDP and Bloc Québécois have both indicated they will vote against Bill C-33 at its third reading. The Liberal caucus is split and will ultimately decide the fate of this bill. Therefore, it is especially important to contact your MP if s/he is from the Liberal Party.
KAIROS asks you to include the following points in a letter, email or phone call to your Member of Parliament:
- The government
needs to conduct more in-depth study of the issue of biofuels
given recent evidence that:
- the rush to biofuels is adversely impacting food security for the most vulnerable
- among other ecological concerns, expanding land use for biofuels may have a net negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions as forests are cut down to plant biofuel crops
- Instead of controversial biofuels, our government should channel support to proven minimal impact renewable energies such as wind and solar and to energy reduction strategies.
In light of these concerns, MPs should vote no to Bill C-33 when it comes up for third reading.
Please send a copy of your letter to KAIROS Campaigns Coordinator Sara Stratton: sstratton kairoscanada.org or 129 St Clair Ave West, Toronto ON M4V 1N5
To find your MP and other members of parliament, see the following web link:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/SenatorsMembers_house.asp?Language=E&Parl=39&Ses=2&Sect=hoccur
All postal mail can be addressed for free to:
House
of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6
Further reading on Bill C-33 and some points on agrofuels:
Text of the Bill: http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/bills_ls.asp?lang=E&ls=c33&source=library_prb&Parl=39&Ses=2
Letter from the National Union of Public and Government Employees
to Mr. Dion:
http://www.nupge.ca/news_2008/n07my08c.htm
Speech and analysis on Bill C-33 by MP Alex Atamanenko
(BC: Southern Interior):
http://atamanenko.ndp.ca/page/187
KAIROS Re-energize campaign on fossil fuels and real
alternatives:
http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/action/campaign.asp
More info:
The grain used to fill one SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.
"Demand for biofuels like ethanol are not only a major cause of increasing prices, but research suggests they may make climate change worse. In this context it is absolute madness to have a mandatory target." - Robert Fox, Executive Director of Oxfam Canada.
"Farmers in our countries pay with their blood so that people in rich countries can feed their cars." - Javiera Rulli, Base Investigaciones Sociales, Paraguay.
One thousand decision-makers on climate change from 105 countries ranked biofuels as the last option, out of 18, for solving climate change, according to a World Bank report.
The Harper government's target of 5% ethanol content in gasoline by 2010 will only reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions by 0.2%. (Greenpeace)
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have singled out government subsidies for biofuel as playing a significant role in rising prices for food. According to the UN World Food Programme, rising food prices are already causing conflict in 33 countries.
In Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, and many other countries people are being evicted from their land to make way for soy, sugar, and palm oil plantations for biofuels.
"To grow biofuels, agricultural corporations are eating up forests and water resources at an alarming rate," says Ditdit Pelegrina of the Philippines-based organization SEARICE. In Indonesia and Malaysia alone, millions of hectares of forest have been cut down for agrofuel production. Forests are our biggest defence against climate change since they absorb carbon, says Pelegrina.
Biotech companies such as Monsanto have strongly lobbied for growing biofuels industrially, which will increase monoculture, genetically modified crops and greater corporate control of agriculture.
The link between food shortages and biofuels is black and white, says Roger Samson, Executive Director of REAP-Canada, an agricultural research group. "It's completely unsustainable. ... We cannot expand the consumption of food crops for fuel or we're going to starve a lot of people," he said. "It's a nightmare scenario."
The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, has called for a 5-year moratorium on the production of biofuels that use food-producing plants.
There are 14 facilities producing biofuels in Canada
and six others are being built. The first one to receive funding
under the governments $2.2 billion subsidy program will produce
ethanol out of wheat grown specifically for ethanol. It is
in the Saskatchewan riding of Conservative Agriculture Minister
Gerry Ritz.
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