Category: Action Reports

17th Octo­ber, 2007
The exhi­bi­tion, fea­tur­ing over a hun­dred trade stands, ran along­side a con­fer­ence which opened on Wednes­day with a key note speech from BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, but was quick­ly thrown into chaos when a num­ber of peo­ple dressed in suits marched onto the stage to tar­get BP’s ‘dan­ger­ous and dis­hon­est’ green­wash and protest at the cat­a­stroph­ic effects of replac­ing cli­mate-sta­bil­is­ing ecosys­tems with arable crops for bio­fu­el feed­stocks.

A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at Mace, while activists swarmed the stage and hand­ed out leaflets to atten­dees. One of the pro­test­ers D‑locked him­self to the podi­um, telling del­e­gates “we need to reduce our con­sump­tion now – tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es are not the answer.” Pan­ic alarms were then set off around the room and the con­fer­ence was halt­ed.

Lat­er a press con­fer­ence was held at which East­side Cli­mate Action gave a state­ment say­ing: “Bio­fu­els are not part of the solu­tion, they are part of the prob­lem. We need lifestyle and eco­nom­ic change, a reduc­tion in con­sump­tion and local pro­duc­tion of all our own needs.”

BP, the main spon­sor of the Bio­fu­els con­fer­ence, did not rep­re­sent them­selves at the press con­fer­ence through fears that atten­tion would be focussed on the protest. Oliv­er Mace was said to be ‘shak­en’ by the morning’s events.

Richard Price, con­fer­ence organ­is­er and Bio­fu­els Media direc­tor, said that one of the aims of the event was to have some debate which sur­rounds issues such as food ver­sus fuel. He also offered a plat­form for those want­i­ng to raise objec­tions and con­cerns with the bio­fu­els indus­try.

Price point­ed to future bio­fu­el tech­nolo­gies, known as sec­ond gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els, which use plant mat­ter such as Jat­ropha and algae, and do not nor­mal­ly enter the food chain. Price and oth­ers are claim­ing that these may offer advan­tages such as high­er oil yields and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using oth­er­wise unvi­able land.

Price admit­ted “we should be using less fuel, being more eco­nom­i­cal, as well as explor­ing bio­fu­els. Next year we’ll see what the issues are, but clear­ly we need a much wider base.” Asked if the con­fer­ence would accept spon­sor­ship from BP in the future, Bio­fu­els Media have so far declined to com­ment.

Lat­er on there were fur­ther protests as cam­paign­ers gath­ered at the main gates to the Newark show­ground, where the con­fer­ence was held. Activists from pres­sure group Bio­fu­el­watch were in atten­dance to explain their con­cerns, and those attend­ing the con­fer­ence were engaged in dis­cus­sions and hand­ed leaflets explain­ing that defor­esta­tion ‑such as to make way for oil palms for fuel in Asia- is a major cause of cli­mate change, account­ing for up to 30 per­cent of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions.

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paign­er Deep­ak Rughani referred to a recent study by sci­en­tist Paul Crutzen, which found that Bio­fu­els pro­duced from arable crops are direct­ly respon­si­ble for green­house gas emis­sions of up to 70% more than the equiv­a­lent of fos­sil-fuel. Rughani added, “when you add in ele­ments of defor­esta­tion or land-use change, you are look­ing at mas­sive fur­ther emis­sions due to the release of car­bon stored in trees, plants and with­in the soil.”

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paigns against the use of bio-ener­gy from unsus­tain­able sources, name­ly bio­fu­els that are linked to accel­er­at­ed cli­mate change, defor­esta­tion, bio-diver­si­ty loss­es, water and soil degra­da­tion, and the dis­place­ment and impov­er­ish­ment of local pop­u­la­tions and loss of food sov­er­eign­ty and secu­ri­ty. Aside from tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, Bio­fu­el­watch and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups believe cuts in green­house gas emis­sions must be based on over­all demand reduc­tion. This means reduc­ing ener­gy use and trans­port as opposed to replac­ing one type of fuel with anoth­er.

Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence — Audio clip (intro & pie) — mp3 1.7M

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Press release —

Date: 17th Octo­ber, 2007
Embar­go: Imme­di­ate Release
CONTACT: 07880 937 511
Newark Show­ground, Newark, Not­ting­hamshire

This morn­ing a group of 15 cli­mate change activists from protest group Food Not Fuel entered the Bio­Fu­el Expo & Con­fer­ence tak­ing place at the Newark Show­ground and took over the keynote speech. Oliv­er Mace, CEO of BP Fuels, the lead spon­sors of the event received a cream pie in the face. Anoth­er cam­paign­er was D‑locked to the podi­um and var­i­ous alarms were placed around the place. The hall was emp­tied and talks were can­celled. There were no arrests.

They were protest­ing against planned expan­sion of bio­fu­els cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to defor­esta­tion and the fact that it will con­tin­ue to con­tribute to cli­mate change. The activists com­plained that bio­fu­els on a large scale is green­wash and com­pa­nies such as BP are ignor­ing its neg­a­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment.

Pro­test­er Michelle Lynch said, “What they are pro­mot­ing is a replace­ment to fos­sil fuels, but the real­i­ty is that they are lit­tle bet­ter. Large scale plan­ta­tions are not the solu­tion; reduc­ing our con­sump­tion is the only real­is­tic way for­ward.”

Anoth­er pro­test­er, Thomas Brad­shaw point­ed out, “Bio­fu­els will be tak­ing food from the mouths of the hun­gary when there are already 800 mil­lion peo­ple suf­fer­ing from mal­nu­tri­tion. These cor­po­ra­tions are effec­tive­ly encour­ag­ing the ero­sion of valu­able arable farm­land and rain­forests vital for com­bat­ing cli­mate change.”

-end-

Notes for edi­tors:

1. The pro­tes­tors can be con­tact­ed at 07880 937 511. Their cri­tique argues that rad­i­cal social change is need­ed to deal with the impact of peak oil and cli­mate change, and that seek­ing solu­tions such as car­bon trad­ing and bio­fu­els are not the answer, as the real prob­lem is unsus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.

2. The Bio­Fu­els Expo & Con­fer­ence (www.biodiesel-expo.co.uk) is the largest of its kind in Europe, and brings togeth­er big indus­try play­ers such as BP Fuels, Deloitte & Touche and many chem­i­cal, agri­cul­tur­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies.

3. A com­pre­hen­sive cri­tique of bio­fu­els can be found at Bio­Fu­els Watch (www.biofuelwatch.org.uk) who are a dis­tinct group from Food Not Fuels, but are host­ing their own demon­stra­tion against the Con­fer­ence.

4. Text of leaflet dis­trib­ute to atten­dees.

Bio­fu­els & Fos­sil Fuels: Bio­fu­els that are not pro­duced by recy­cling waste oil are the direct prod­uct of large scale mono­cul­ture. Cur­rent­ly the amount of fos­sil fuels required to pro­duce bio­fu­els is greater than the amount of fuel you get out: you have to make the fer­til­iz­er, run the agri­cul­tur­al machin­ery, trans­port the feed­stocks and fuels, and refine the plant mat­ter into fuel.

Bio­fu­els & Food: The land that is used to farm bio­fu­els has to come from some­where. If it is agri­cul­tur­al land used for food then there will be less food. Maize, Mex­i­co’s sta­ple crop, have increased mas­sive­ly due to Amer­i­can demand for bioethanol. Adding to the num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing below the pover­ty line.

Bio­fu­els & Land use: If not agri­cul­tur­al land, then bio­fu­els will be grown on vir­gin rain­for­est or wet­land. 1/3 of all green­house gas emis­sions come from the destruc­tion of liv­ing car­bon sinks. The Ama­zon rain­for­est is the largest dri­ver of the cli­mate on the plan­et and expand­ing bioethanol plan­ta­tions will push it to extinc­tion. Wet­lands, eg peat, con­tain more car­bon that the whole atmos­phere and cov­er just 1% of the worlds sur­face. The largest peat bogs in the world, in Indone­sia, are cur­rent­ly being drained for palm oil plan­ta­tions. If green­house gas emis­sions con­tin­ue as they cur­rent­ly are we will go beyond the cli­mate tip­ping point caus­ing mass extinc­tion of life on earth.

Bio­fu­els & Local Con­trol: The dri­ving force beyond the expan­sion in bio­fu­els are big cor­po­ra­tions such as BP & Mon­san­to, and gov­ern­ment — the very peo­ple who have got us into this mess. They are using bio­fu­els as a way to con­tin­ue their posi­tion of pow­er into the post peak oil world. To stand a chance of sur­vival the con­trol of land must be by local peo­ple for local peo­ple.

The Solu­tion: We will need to reduce our con­sump­tion to lev­els that we can meet our­selves. This WILL mean a reduc­tion in lux­u­ries, like the lux­u­ry to trav­el. Some bio­fu­els will be used, but at a frac­tion of our cur­rent oil use. We need to end the search for tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to eco­nom­ic prob­lems. We need to localise our econ­o­my, pro­duce our own food, make our own tools and use less.

We need an end to eco­nom­ic growth.

foodnotfuel1@yahoo.co.uk

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Block­ade of D1 Oils — anti-agro­fu­el demo

Pro­tes­tors from No Agro­fu­els UK block­ad­ed DI oils refin­ery and offices this morn­ing to raise aware­ness of the detri­men­tal impact of agro­fu­els. The protest was timed to coin­cide with the nation­al Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence in Newark.

18 Pro­tes­tors chained the 3 gates to the refin­ery shut and 2 pro­tes­tors were D‑locked to the main gates. No vehi­cles were able to enter or leave the site and all work appeared to have been stopped.

Sev­er­al ban­ners were tied over the gates includ­ing “No Agro­fu­els, Land 4 Peo­ple, Food, Bio­di­ver­si­ty” and “Cli­mate Change Prof­i­teers”

Agro­fu­els (fuels pro­duced from pur­pose­ly and inten­sive­ly grown crops) are not the green solu­tion. They result in defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal rain­forests and burn­ing of peat­lands which increase car­bon in the atmos­phere. Stud­ies have shown that when you include ener­gy used to grow and pro­duce the fuels includ­ing chem­i­cal pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion they use more ener­gy then oil based fuels.

Agro­fu­els also cause food inse­cu­ri­ty by reduc­ing land avail­bale to grow food and increas­ing food prices. They result in land dis­pos­ses­sion as peo­ple in Africa, Asia and South Amer­i­ca are forced off their land to enable crops to be grown for the fuel of Europe and the USA. In Colom­bia there have been human rights abus­es to gain con­trol of the land.

D1 is one of the biggest traders world­wide of palm oil and oil seed rape. They have inter­ests in India, Indone­sia, Chi­na, South Africa, Zam­bia, Swazi­land, El Sal­vador and are soon plan­ning to get into Brazil and sev­er­al otehr African coun­tries. They are direct­ly respon­si­ble for land dis­pos­ses­sion, food inse­cu­ri­ty and increas­ing pover­ty, they are not the pro­vid­ing the solu­tion to our cli­mate cri­sis, the only solu­tion to cli­mate change is a reduc­tion in ener­gy rather then exploit­ing the bio­di­ver­si­ty, peo­ple and land of the Glob­al South.

For more info see: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

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Ban­ner Protest out­side Biodiesel Expo in Newark

About 40 pro­test­ers held a ban­ner protest out­side the Biodiesel Expo in Newark, Europe’s largest bio­fu­el con­fer­ence this year. Par­tic­i­pants of the con­fer­ence include BP, Vir­gin and D1 Oils, a bio­fu­el com­pa­ny head­ed by for­mer Shell CEO Lord Oxburgh which is acquir­ing rights over large areas of land in India and south­ern Africa. Pro­test­ers high­light­ed the dev­as­tat­ing impact which the indus­try is hav­ing on glob­al warm­ing, rain­forests, local com­mu­ni­ties in the glob­al South and food secu­ri­ty.

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PRESS RELEASE

Newark : 40 Pro­tes­tors call for food for peo­ple, not cars

Over 40 envi­ron­men­tal­ists protest­ed out­side the ‘Biodiesel Expo’ today, Wednes­day 17th Octo­ber, at Newark Show­ground. The protest was to raise aware­ness of the dam­age that mas­sive and rapid bio­fu­els devel­op­ment is hav­ing on the cli­mate, peo­ple, food secu­ri­ty and forests.

The protest comes just the day after World Food Day Octo­ber 16th when the UN Food and Agro­cul­ture orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) high­light­ed the impacts of bio­fu­els of food secu­ri­ty around the world.

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, is so con­cerned that he has warned that rapid bio­fu­el devel­op­ment is a total dis­as­ter for those who are starv­ing. He will call for an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices in the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly on Octo­ber 25th. (see below).

Deep­ak Rughani from bio­fu­el­watch says “The UN FAO is very con­cerned about bio­fu­els. They have said that they ‘are grave­ly con­cerned that bio­fu­els will bring hunger in their wake’. A bat­tle is being cre­at­ed between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hun­gry in devel­op­ing coun­tries at the mer­cy of rapid­ly ris­ing prices for food, land and water. The EU and the UK urgent­ly need a mora­to­ri­um of bio­fu­els to make sure that we don’t push mil­lions into star­va­tion. We have protest­ed today to sup­port the call in the UN and demand the UK gov­ern­ment stops the mad rush to bio­fu­els”.

bio­fu­el­watch, who are cam­paign­ing for EU mora­to­ri­um on large-scale bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion and imports into the EU, say that from April 2008 UK con­sumers will have no choice about hav­ing to buy bio­fu­els at the pump. The bio­fu­els avail­able will be blend­ed from many dif­fer­ence sources across the globe depend­ing on com­mod­i­ty mar­ket prices.

From April, con­sumers will not be able to avoid buy­ing bio­fu­el that may be accel­er­at­ing destruc­tion of trop­i­cal forests, increas­ing their car­bon emis­sions, caus­ing human rights abus­es, and tak­ing land from vital food pro­duc­tion.

Infor­ma­tion:

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food is to demand an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices at the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly on 25th Octo­ber. http://tinyurl.com/2ltgwd
The entire text of a report to the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly from Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Zei­gler, high­light­ing the risks to mil­lions from bio­fu­els is attached to this Press release.

Links to World Food Day press from around the world
Jamaica — Food prices set to rise – Tufton:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071016/business/business1.html

Bio­fu­els high­light­ed in Colom­bia :

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1157

New Zealand: Food Prices Dri­ven by Bio­fu­els

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1149

World­wide Women’s Ener­gy issue :: Feed Peo­ple, Not Cars

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1146

Bio­fu­els and world hunger

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1145

Con­tacts:

Andrew Boswell, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : T: +44–1603-613798 M: +44–7787127881 (at the protest)

E: andrew.boswell[at]yahoo.co.uk

Deep­ak Rughani, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : +44–7931–636337 (at the protest)

info@biofuelwatch.org.uk
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk