Keith Taylor, the Green MEP for South East England, has urged the government to stop relying on biofuels to reduce the UK's greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at the Green Party's spring conference in Cardiff (1), Keith called on the UK government to invest instead in cleaner, renewable energy to meet the European energy targets set out in the EU Renewable Energy Directive. Keith also called on the EU to put the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the centre of its energy policy.
Keith warned that burning biofuels increases CO2 emissions and creates air pollution, increasing the risk of respiratory and heart disease (2). In the developing world the production of biofuels like palm oil leads to deforestation, a loss of biodiversity, higher world food prices, increasing starvation and the destruction of people's livelihoods.
Keith said: "Although biofuels come from plants they are not a ‘green' solution. Growing, transporting and burning biofuels has devastating effects on people and the environment both in the UK and around the world."
Recently Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, granted planning permission for what will be Britain's biggest biofuel power station, against the wishes of local councillors in Bristol.
Campaigners in the city voiced concerns that palm oil production has a bigger impact on the climate than burning fossil fuels. Research shows that if the change of land use caused by growing biofuels is taken into account, they cause more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels (3).
Keith added: "The growing number of planned biofuel power stations in the UK is alarming and is based on the UK government's misguided view that biofuels are the answer. Relying on biofuels to solve our energy crisis simply dumps the problem on developing countries. What we need is more efficient use of energy and committed investment in clean renewables like wind, solar and tidal power."
Keith was speaking alongside Pippa Bartolotti, Deputy Leader of the Wales Green Party and a Newport resident who is campaigning against plans to build a biofuel power station in Alexandra Dock, Pillgwenlly. Less than a mile away from the proposed site, there is already a coal power station, gas power station and a planned incinerator.
Pippa said: "Building more and more power stations in built-up areas leaves our poorest communities like Pillgwenlly to cope with the health problems caused by increasing levels of air pollution.
"Genuinely renewable energy like wind power does not damage the health of local people or have devastating consequences for people in the developing world - but ironically lots of planning applications for Welsh wind farms are still being turned down. Welsh councils need to realise that burning fuel of any kind is not going to solve our energy problems. Instead we must allow companies to harness wind power to provide genuinely renewable energy in Wales."
Notes
(1) On Friday 25th February, Keith chaired a panel debate, ‘Debunking the Biofuels Myth', on biofuels at the Green Party's spring conference in Cardiff. The panel included Kenneth Richter, Friends of the Earth; Robert Palgrave, Biofuelwatch; and Pippa Bartolotti, Deputy Leader of the Green Party in Wales and a Newport resident who has been campaigning against plans to build a biofuel power station in Pillgwenlly, Newport.
(2) In 2009, Ealing Borough Council in London refused an application for a biofuel power station in Southall due to serious concerns over air pollution (nitrogen oxides and small particulates). At appeal the Secretary of State ruled that the pollution would be too great in an urban area with already high levels of Nitrogen Dioxide.
(3) See www.foe.co.uk/news/biofuels