[E-rundbrief] Info 611 - V. Shiva - Food, Forests and Fuel - Climate Change

Do Nov 29 23:20:59 CET 2007

E-Rundbrief - Info 611 - Dr. Vandana Shiva 
(Indien): Food, Forests and Fuel : From False to 
Real Solutions for the Climate Change.

Bad Ischl, 29.11.2007

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Food, Forests and Fuel : From False to Real Solutions for the Climate Change

Dr. Vandana Shiva

November 28, 2007

December 3  14, 2007 will see more than 10,000 
representatives of Government and civil society 
gather in Bali for a meeting of the United 
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 
This is the international treaty under which the 
Kyoto Protocol was negotiated. The Protocol 
expires in 2012, and Bali is supposed to begin 
negotiations on a post Kyoto framework.

In 2007, no one can deny that man-made climate 
change is taking place. However, the commitment 
to mitigate and help the vulnerable to adapt does 
not match the recognition of the disaster.

Mitigation requires material changes in 
production and consumption patterns. 
Globalisation has pushed production and 
consumption worldwide to higher carbon dioxide 
emissions. WTO rules of trade liberalization are 
in effect rules that force countries on a high 
emissions pathway. Similarly, World Bank lending 
for super highways and thermal power plant, 
industrial agriculture and corporate retail 
coerces countries to emit more greenhouse gases. 
And giant corporations such as Cargill and 
Walmart carry major responsibility in destroying 
local, sustainable economies and pushing society 
after society into dependence on an ecologically 
destructive global economy. Cargill is an 
important player in spreading soya cultivation in 
the Amazon, and palmoil plantations in the 
rainforest of Indonesia thus increasing emissions 
both by the burning of forests and destruction of 
the massive carbon sink in rainforests and peat 
lands. And Walmarts model of long distance 
centralized trade is a recipe for increasing the 
carbon dioxide burden in the atmosphere.

The first step in mitigation requires a focus on 
real actions of real actors. Real actions are 
actions such as a shift from ecological farming 
and local food system. Real actors include global 
agribusiness, the WTO, the World Bank. Real 
actions involve destruction of rural economies 
with low emission to urban sprawl designed and 
planned by builders and construction companies. 
Real actions involve destruction of sustainable 
transport systems based on renewable energy and 
public transport to private automobiles. Real 
actors pushing this transition to 
non-sustainability in mobility are the oil 
companies and automobile corporations.

Kyoto totally avoided the material challenge of 
stopping activities that lead to higher emissions 
and the political challenge of regulation of the 
polluters and making the polluters pay in 
accordance with principles adopted at the Earth 
Summit in Rio. Instead, Kyoto put in place the 
mechanism of emissions trading which in effect 
rewarded the polluters by assigning them rights 
to the atmosphere and trading in these rights to 
pollute. Today, the emissions trading market has 
reached $ 30 billion and is expected to go up to 
$ 1 trillion. Carbon dioxide emissions continue 
to increase, while profits from hot air also 
increase. I call it hot air both because it is 
literally hot air leading to global warming and 
because it is metaphorically hot air, based on 
the fictitious economy of finance which has 
overtaken the real economy, both in size and in 
our perception. A casino economy has allowed 
corporations and their owners to multiply their 
wealth without limit, and without any 
relationship to the real world. Yet this hungry 
money then seeks to own the real resources of 
people  the land and the forests, the farms and 
the food, and turn them into cash. Unless we 
return to the real world, we will not find the 
solutions that will help mitigate climate change.

Another false solution to climate change is the 
promotion of biofuels based on corn and soya, palmoil and jatropha.

Biofuels, fuels from biomass, continue to be the 
most important energy source for the poor in the 
world. The ecological biodiverse farm is not just 
a source of food; it is a source of energy. 
Energy for cooking the food comes from the 
inedible biomass like cow dung cakes, stalks of 
millets and pulses, agro-forestry species on 
village wood lots. Managed sustainably, village 
commons have been a source of decentralized energy for centuries.

Industrial biofuels are not the fuels of the 
poor; they are the foods of the poor, transformed 
into heat, electricity, and transport.  Liquid 
biofuels, in particular ethanol and bio-diesel, 
are one of the fastest growing sectors of 
production, driven by the search of alternatives 
to fossil fuels both to avoid the catastrophe of 
peak oil and to reduce carbon dioxide 
emissions.  President Bush is trying to pass 
legislation to require the use of 35 billion 
gallons of biofuels by 2017.  M. Alexander of the 
Sustainable Development Department of FAO has 
stated: The gradual move away from oil has 
begun. Over the next 15 to 20 years we may see 
biofuels providing a full 25 per cent of the worlds energy needs.

Global production of biofuels alone has doubled 
in the last five years and will likely double 
again in the next four. Among countries that have 
enacted a new pro-biofuel policy in recent years 
are Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, 
Columbia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malawi, 
Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, 
Senegal, South Africa, Thailand and Zambia.

There are two types of industrial 
biofuels  ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be 
produced from products rich in saccharose such as 
sugarcane and molasses, substances rich in starch 
such as maize, barley and wheat. Ethanol is 
blended with petrol. Biodiesel is produced from 
vegetable only such as palm oil, soya oil, and 
rapeseed oil. Biodiesel is blended with diesel.

Representatives of organizations and social 
movements from Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, 
Columbia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic in 
a declaration titled Full Tanks at the Cost of 
Empty Stomachs, wrote The current model of 
production of bio-energy is sustained by the same 
elements that have always caused the oppression 
of our peoples appropriation of territory, of 
natural resources, and the labor force.

And Fidel Castro in an article titled Food stuff 
as Imperial weapon: Biofuels and Global Hunger has said:

More than three billion people are being 
condemned to a premature death from hunger and thirst.

The biofuel sector worldwide has grown rapidly. 
United states and Brazil have established ethanol 
industries and the European Union is also fast 
catching up to explore the potential 
market.  Governments all over the world are 
encouraging biofuel production with favourable 
policies.  United states is pushing the other 
third world nations of the world to go in for 
biofuel production so that their energy needs get 
met at the expense of plundering others resources.

Inevitably this massive increase in the demand 
for grains is going to come at the expense of the 
satisfaction of human needs, with poor people 
priced out of the food market. On February 28, 
the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement released 
a statement noting that the expansion of the 
production of biofuels aggravates hunger in the 
world. We cannot maintain our tanks full while stomachs go empty.

The diversion of food for fuel has already 
increased the price of corn and soya.  There have 
been riots in Mexico because of the price rise of 
tortillas.  And this is just the beginning. 
Imagine the land needed for providing 25% of the oil from food.

One tonne of corn produces 413 litres of ethanol. 
35 million gallons of ethanol requires 320 
million tons of corn.  The U.S. produced 280.2 
million tons of corn in 2005.  As a result of 
NAFTA, the U.S. made Mexico dependent on U.S. 
corn, and destroyed the small farms of 
Mexico.  This was in fact the basis of the 
Zopatista uprising.  As a result of corn being 
diverted to biofuels, prices of corn have increased in Mexico.

Industrial biofuels are being promoted as a 
source of renewable energy and as a means to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, there 
are two ecological reasons why converting crops 
like soya, corn and palm oil into liquid fuels 
can actually aggravate climate chaos and the CO2 burden.

Firstly, deforestation caused by expanding soya 
plantations and palm oil plantations is leading 
to increased CO2 emissions.  The United Nations 
Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 
1.6 billion tons or 25 to 30 per cent of the 
greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere 
each year comes from deforestation.  By 2022, 
biofuel plantations could destroy 98% of Indonesias rainforests.

According to Wetlands International, destruction 
of South East Asia pert lands for palm oil 
plantations is contributing to 8% of the global 
CO2 emissions.  According to Delft Hydraulics, 
every tonne of palm oil results in 30 tonnes of 
carbon dioxide emissions or 10 times as much as 
petroleum producers. However, this additional 
burden on the atmosphere is treated as a clean 
development mechanism in the Kyoto Protocol for 
reducing emissions.  Biofuels are thus 
contributing to the same global warming that they 
are supposed to reduce.  (World Rainforest Bulletin No.112, Nov 2006, Page 22)

Further, the conversion of biomass to liquid fuel 
uses more fossil fuels than it substitutes.

One gallon of ethanol production requires 28,000 
kcal.  This provides 19,400 kcal of energy.  Thus 
the energy efficiency is -- 43%.

The U.S. will use 20% of its corn to produce 5 
billion gallons of ethanol which will substitute 
1% of oil use.  If 100% of corn was used, only 7% 
of the total oil would be substituted. This is 
clearly not a solution either to peak oil or 
climate chaos. (David Pimental at IFG conference 
on The Triple Crisis, London, Feb 23-25, 2007)

And it is a source of other crisis.  1700 gallons 
of water are used to produce a gallon of ethanol. 
Corn uses more nitrogen fertilizer, more 
insecticides, more herbicides than any other crop.

These false solutions will increase the climate 
crisis while aggravating and deepening inequality, hunger and poverty.

Real solutions exist which can mitigate climate 
change while reducing hunger and poverty.

According to the Stern Report, agriculture 
accounts for 14% emissions, land use (referring 
largely to deforestation) accounts for 18%, and 
transport accounts for 14%. The increasing 
transport of fresh food, which could be grown 
locally, is part of these 14% emissions.

Not all agricultural systems however contribute 
to greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial chemical 
agriculture, also called the Green Revolution 
when introduced in Third World countries, is the 
major source of three greenhouse gases  carbon 
dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and methane. Carbon 
dioxide is emitted from using fossil fuels for 
machines and pumping of ground water, and the 
production of chemical fertilizers and 
pesticides. Chemical fertilizers also emit 
nitrogen oxygen, which is 300 times more lethal 
than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. And 
grain fed factory farming is a major source of 
methane. Studies indicate that a shift from grain 
fed to predominantly grass fed organic diet could 
reduce methane emission from livestock by upto 50%.

Ecological, organic agriculture reduces emissions 
both by reducing dependence on fossil fuels, 
chemical fertilizers and intensive feed, as well 
as absorbing more carbon in the soil. Our studies 
show an increase of carbon sequestration of upto 
200% in biodiverse organic systems.

When ecological and organic is combined with 
direct and local, emissions are further reduced 
by reducing energy use for food miles, 
packaging and refrigeration of food. And local 
food systems will reduce the pressure to expand 
agriculture in the rainforests of Brazil and 
Indonesia. We could, with a timely transition 
reduce emissions, increase food security and food 
quality and improve the resilience of rural 
communities to deal with the impact of climate 
change. The transition from the industrial 
globalised food system being imposed by WTO, the 
World Bank and Global Agribusinesses to 
ecological and local food systems is both a 
mitigation and adaption strategy. It protects the 
poor and it protects the planet. The post-Kyoto 
framework must include ecological agriculture as a climate solution.

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