Posted on 28 November
2013 - Gland, Switzerland: A WWF analysis
has shown that the standards used to assess
biofuel sources fall well short of ensuring
that Europe’s push towards increased biofuel
use is not contributing to environmental
destruction and social exploitation.
The study, assessing
the certification standards for biofuels
accepted by the EU against a Certification
Assessment Tool (CAT) developed by WWF,
found many of the analysed standards had
middle to low level performance.
Although EU’s biofuel
policy aims to protect areas of high biodiversity
and to reduce direct greenhouse gas emissions
the new WWF study reveals the lack of binding
requirements in several areas, such as:
for the preservation and improvement of
ground, water and air quality, including
the lack of criteria for the use of agrochemicals.
Furthermore, social standards such as a
ban on slave or child labour are also left
out.
"Poisoned water
and polluted soil is too high a price to
pay for a full petrol tank ", said
Imke Lübbeke, Senior Renewable Energy
Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office.
“While biofuels are one way to cut our dependence
on fossil fuels, EU regulations remain too
weak to ensure that the biofuels we use
in Europe – whether imported or domestically
produced - are environmentally and socially
sustainable.”
The WWF CAT study found
that while all schemes met the mandatory
EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) requirements,
these were not enough to ensure sustainability.
A number of the standards, specifically
the ones created to comply with the EU RED,
lacked or had inadequate criteria on issues
such as waste management, compliance with
labor laws and social legislation and paid
insufficient attention to potential biofuel
impacts on food security. Many did not require
restoration of the native vegetation of
riparian and other important areas.
Many also scored very
low on key implementation measures such
as transparency, auditor accreditation and
the adequacy and strength of audit checks.
The best-performing
scheme out of the 13 looked into by the
WWF analysis is the Roundtable on Sustainable
Biomaterials (RSB) standard. The top performing
standards tended to be multi-stakeholder
biofuels certification schemes which actively
involve businesses, civil society and policy
makers in standard setting and implementation.
“The upcoming revision
of the EU Renewable Energy Directive must
now be used to close unacceptable gaps in
the requirements,” said Lübbeke. “Having
talked the talk, the EU must now walk the
walk and ensure that the production of the
biofuels we use in Europe is sustainable
and free from human rights abuses and exploitation.
In particular, a scheme designed to reduce
emissions needs to fully account for all
emissions.”
+ More
Warsaw Must Respond
to Planetary Emergency
Posted on 20 November
2013 - Warsaw: Climate change is real; it’s
happening at an alarming rate, and human-activities,
mainly the burning of fossil fuels, are
causing it, warned the IPCC1 warned in September.
The devastating human
face of this tragedy has been on display
in the Philippines this week, where one
of the strongest typhoons ever recorded
made landfall, costing thousands of lives
and homes.
Climate impacts are
already affecting millions of people across
the world in the form of more unpredictable
rainfall patterns, more erratic severe and
extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting
glaciers. This is putting pressure and stress
on our farmers and food systems, driving
price spikes, food shortages and more hunger.
And many millions more
could be affected in the future as homes,
and communities are destroyed and our lives
and livelihoods are disrupted or lost -
unless world leaders take meaningful action
against climate change.
So far, governments
and business leaders have failed to put
the world on a path to sustainable and climate-friendly
development for all that stays within ecological
limits.
That is why frustrations
are rising, and civil disobedience is on
the increase. CO2 emissions are at an all-time
high. We stand with those, like the Arctic
30, who stood up for the interests of us
all by saying no to further fossil fuel
extraction.
We, six of the worlds’
largest environmental and development non-government
organizations, with the International Trade
Union Confederation, make a unified call
to governments to act on the findings of
the IPCC at the UN Climate Conference in
Warsaw and to:
1) Set and implement
2020 targets for climate pollution cuts
that are stronger, not weaker;
2) Ensure that the finance
and technology support promised for the
world’s most vulnerable is delivered so
that they can adapt to climate impacts;
and
3) Create protections
for people from the new risks posed by a
changed climate (i.e. a meaningful mechanism
on Loss and Damage) and in the just transition
necessary to confront the climate crisis.
If all of these tests
are not met, it will represent a tragic
failure:
A failure by developed
country governments to live up to their
legal and moral obligations – governments
that are undermining this process by consistently
negotiating in bad faith and having brought
nothing to offer.
A failure of developing
country governments to defend the needs
and rights of their people.
A failure by us to successfully
amplify the call from ordinary people to
do everything in our power to avert the
climate crisis.
Warsaw should be a step
forward for a just transition, shifting
our communities and economies onto a more
sustainable path. Governments must start
this transition and ensure the decent jobs
of a sustainable future are available for
all.
The energy sector is
at the forefront of this transition, as
it is the main source of climate pollution.
Extraction of fossil fuels is also increasingly
a driver for the displacement of people,
local pollution, water shortage and loss
of biodiversity.
At the same time, renewable
energy provides a straightforward, proven
and increasingly affordable solution (with
far fewer direct impacts) that can also
bring energy access to the 1.3 billion people
currently without power. If we are to follow
what the science says, then we have to stop
investing in fossil fuels and shift those
investments into energy efficiency and sustainable
renewable energy.
Governments at Warsaw
should take concrete steps to stop public
handouts to dirty energy companies and to
support measures such as a globally funded
feed in tariff that would bring clean, affordable
energy to the world’s poor; and to provide
public funding at scale to support desperately
needed adaptation efforts; and establish
a meaningful mechanism to deal with loss
and damage.
We call on all leaders
to prove in Warsaw that they will choose
clean energy over dirty energy, renewables
over fossil fuels, peoples’ needs and desires
over corporate interests, and a safe future
without run-away climate change.
