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Do biofuels help mitigate climate change?

The 2008 edition of FAO’s annual flagship sugar cane, maize, wheat, sugar beet and publication State of Food and Agriculture rapeseed for ethanol and biodiesel on existing focuses on prospects, risks and opportunities cropland, more carbon would be sequestered from biofuels. It raises issues of important over a 30-year period by converting the crop- interest to forestry – notably questioning the land to forest. usual assumption that replacement of fossil State of Food and Agriculture 2008 notes fuels with fuels generated from biomass will that while biofuels are an important option for necessarily reduce greenhouse gas emis- reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in many sions. cases improving energy efficiency and con- Greenhouse gases are emitted at many servation, increasing carbon sequestration stages in the production of bioenergy crops through reforestation or changes in agricul- and biofuels (including in production of agri- forest land to produce these crops can release tural practices, or using other forms of renew- cultural inputs, fertilizer application, chemical 600 to 1 000 tonnes per hectare. able energy can be more cost-effective. processing and transport of biofuels). More- One study estimated that the conversion of The complete text of State of Food and over, they are emitted by land-use changes tropical moist forest, peatland, savannah or Agriculture 2008 including references to the directly or indirectly triggered by increased grassland to produce ethanol and biodiesel studies cited here is available online at: www. biofuel production, for example when carbon in Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia or the United fao.org/docrep/011/i0100e/i0100e00.htm stored in forest or grasslands is released dur- States of America releases at least 17 times The recent FAO publication Forests and ing conversion to crop production. While maize as much carbon dioxide as those biofuels save energy: key issues, reviewed on p. 56 of this produced for ethanol can generate greenhouse annually by replacing fossil fuels. issue, provides additional perspectives on the gas savings of about 1.8 tonnes of carbon Another study concluded that in comparison complex relations among biofuels, agriculture, dioxide per hectare per year, the conversion of with carbon emissions avoided by growing forests and climate change.

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