Rarely in political history can there have been such a rapid and dramatic reversal of a received wisdom as we have seen in the past 18 months over biofuels the cropping of living plants, such as soya beans, wheat and sugar cane, to generate energy.
Two years ago, biofuels were still being hailed as a dream solution to what was seen as one of the most urgent problems confronting mankind — our dependence on fossil fuels, which are not only finite but seemed to be threatening the world with the catastrophe of global warming.
In March 2007, European Union leaders, in a package of measures designed to lead the world in the “fight against climate change”, committed us by 2020 to deriving 10 per cent of all transport fuel from “renewables”, above all biofuels, which theoretically gave off no more carbon dioxide than was absorbed in their growing.
Since then, however, the biofuels dream has been disintegrating.
Environmentalists formerly keen on this “green energy” expressed horror at the havoc it was inflicting on ecosystems, not least the clearing of rainforests to grow fuel crops.
As the world suddenly faced its worst food shortage in decades, experts pointed out that a major cause had been diverting millions of acres of farmland from food production to fuel.
Also, studies showed producing biofuels could give off more carbon dioxide than they saved.
So devastating has been the backlash that even the British government, which prides itself on being the greenest of the green, commissioned a review.
When its recommendations were endorsed by senior ministers, the United Kingdom was put at odds with a European Union policy to which it had signed up.
But the EU is firmly holding its line, saying it has no intention of lowering its target.
In the 1970s, a rise in oil prices and fears that reserves might be running out prompted a renewal of interest in biofuels — particularly among environmentalist groups, who saw them as “sustainable” energy.
In 1992, as prices of oil rose after the first Gulf War, Washington and Brussels believed that biofuels could be a way of using their then-massive crop surpluses to wean the United States and the EU off dependence on imported oil.
The same year, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the cause of biofuels became part of the “climate change” agenda.
In the US, a powerful lobby grew among farmers who were encouraged by their governments to see biofuels as a lucrative source of income.
Also, led by the UN, the world was encouraged to see biofuels as key to the fight against global warming.
From 2004 to 2007, driven by everything from the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, hysteria over global warming reached its peak, pushing it to the top of the world’s political agenda.
The most obvious response came from the EU. In March 2007, its leaders gathered in Brussels to adopt a package of measures designed to show that the EU was “leading the world on climate change”.
One of the measures required that 10 per cent of all EU transport fuel was to come from biofuels by 2020.
Internal European Commission documents show that while discussing that target, officials saw it not as an answer to global warming but only as a way to increase the EU’s “energy self-sufficiency”.
They were also aware that switching huge areas of farmland from food to fuel would drive up world food prices.
Even worse, by the end of 2006, the commission was aware that the world was about to face a food shortage.
Yet in attempting to show that enough acreage would be available to meet the new biofuels target, the officials indulged in “Enron accounting”, using the same areas of land three times.
Despite all this going on behind the scenes, when the EU’s political leaders nodded through their “global warming” package in March 2007, biofuels were thrown in, seemingly without any questioning from the politicians.
It was at this point that the backlash against biofuels suddenly erupted.
Even before the EU had adopted its new target, criticism of biofuels was coming from the same environmental groups which had once been their advocates.
Their focus was the damage being done by the clearing of vast areas of rainforest in Brazil and Indonesia for biofuels.
Next to weigh in were experts pointing out that a significant reason for the food shortage was the vast area of food-growing land diverted to biofuels.
According to the World Bank’s top economist, Don Mitchell, biofuels were responsible for three quarters of the 140 per cent rise in world food prices between 2002 and 2008.
It was this that prompted Jean Ziegler, the UN’s “special rapporteur on the right to food”, to comment that biofuels were a “crime against humanity”.
Most alarming to the global-warming lobby was a succession of studies showing that far from helping cut carbon dioxide emissions, biofuel production could often give off much more carbon dioxide than it saved.
So devastating has been this onslaught on biofuels that Ed Gallagher, chairman of the UK’s new Renewable Fuels Agency, published a report recommending that Britain should review its policy, concentrating on “second-generation biofuels”, such as crop wastes and wood chips, which do not compete with food production.
The European Parliament’s environmental committee also called on the commission to lower its targets.
But the panel now maintains — despite its earlier internal analysis — that biofuels have not been the cause of higher food prices, which it blames on rising world demand, bad weather and international speculation.
With the powerful US farmers’ lobby, backed by President Bush, equally insistent that nothing can be done to change a policy which, according to the FAO, could soon see nearly a third of US farmland diverted to biofuels, it seems this “crime against humanity” is set to continue.
