UK government urged to end biofuel subsidy

The UK government should end all biofuel subsidies to prevent the destruction of carbon sinks such as rainforests and peat bogs, according to a report by a London think-tank.

The right-wing Policy Exchange thinktank says that rainforests and peat land remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than replacing fossil fuel burning with biofuels, and the government should end its £550m annual subsidy.

As part of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), the government wants five per cent of all fuel sold on forecourts to come from biological sources. The current percentage is 2.5 per cent.

The government has become increasingly wary of biofuel targets, as the extent of destruction for virgin forests and peat land for biofuel crop plantations becomes evident. Additionally, farmers globally are turning to more lucative biofuel production rather than food production, causing global food prices to rise.

Policy Exchange says that investing in the protection of peatland or rainforests could prevent the release of 50 times the amount of CO2, but tropical deforestation contributes 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

"In the UK alone, biofuel subsidies cost £550m annually. In 2005, a similar investment in preventing deforestation and peatland destruction could have offset the equivalent of up to 37% of all UK CO2 emissions, said Ben Caldecott, editor of the report.

"In the UK we can dramatically increase funding for forest and peatland projects domestically and with key partners, especially in South-East Asia, as well as lobbying at an international level for the right global policies.

"All this can be done within our current budget, by ending wasteful and damaging biofuel subsidies."

Ministers recently indicated that they could delay the RTFO's five per cent target from 2010-11 to 2013-14.

Last month the government-commissioned Gallagher report indicated that biofuel production has played a significant role in accelerating deforestation and pushing up food prices.

Gallagher said that biofuels still have a part to play, but stated: "we cannot continue producing biofuels that are ultimately more environmentally and socially damaging than the fossil fuels they seek to replace".

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