Greens MP: include biofuels in emissions trading - 3 July 2008

When Ross Garnaut releases his draft report on emissions trading tomorrow, Greens MP Ian Cohen will be looking through the fine print to see if biofuels have been included.

“Whilst the climate spotlight is on transport fuels, it’s important that Garnaut’s momentum be harnessed so that all fuels are included in the emissions trading scheme,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.

“The NSW Government has a policy of supporting grain guzzling ethanol fuel regardless of the environmental impacts and despite the upward affect on food prices.

“Frank Sartor has given development approval to a company that wants to make biodiesel exclusively from imported palm oil – a practice that will exacerbate climate change and speed up tropical deforestation in South East Asia.

“Oxfam estimates that ‘by 2020, the emissions resulting from land-use change in
the palm-oil sector may have reached between 3.1 and 4.6 billion tonnes
of CO2 – 46 to 68 times the annual saving the EU hopes to be achieving
by then from biofuels’.

“Mandating higher levels of ethanol production in NSW will not necessarily lead to better environmental outcomes and could even damage the development of a low-carbon, alternative fuels industry by entrenching first generation, grain based ethanol producers who then create a block to second generation technologies.

“A ten percent grain ethanol petrol blend has negligible benefits over conventional petrol in terms of limiting greenhouse emissions, but some of the so-called second generation biofuels like algal biodiesel are looking very promising, with possible reductions of up to 80 per cent.

“The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 came into force this week. It will require more and more companies to start reporting on their overall emissions. I’d like to see biofuel producers adopting the same protocols.

“If the Federal Government ends up generating $8 billion per year from emissions permits, a percentage of these funds should go towards fast tracking the best of the alternative fuel technologies,” said Mr Cohen.