Biofuels Can Allow All Humanity to Prosper
For Personal Use Only
These programmes also put a damper on chaotic migration, staunching the exodus from rural to urban areas, reducing the pressure on major cities, and providing a disincentive to small-scale miners and farmers to raze forests.
In addition, the expansion of sugar cane production has helped restore overgrazed pasture land that had little or no potential for agriculture.
Developing countries thus stand to benefit significantly from biofuels.
Given their enormous potential for creating jobs and generating income, they offer a real option of sustainable development, especially in countries that depend on the export of scarce natural resources. At the same time, ethanol and biodiesel open up new paths of development, especially in the bio-chemical industries, in the form of social, economic, and technological alternatives for countries that are economically poor but rich in sun and arable land.
For a world facing environmental degradation and the increase of energy prices, biofuel offers real promise. It can help poor countries combine economic growth with social inclusion, and environmental conservation. In short, it is a valiant ally in the fight against social and political instability, violence, and migratory chaos.
However, this revolution can only occur if the rich countries open their markets to the poorest and eliminate agro-subsidies and barriers to the import of biofuels.
It is a win-win situation. Developing countries will generate jobs for marginalised populations and funds to energise their economies, while developed countries can tap into a source of competitively-priced clean energy instead of investing in massively expensive innovations to make conventional fuels more green.
Biofuels offer us a way to allow all humanity to prosper without mortgaging the future of generations to come. This is the message I will carry to the World Conference on Biofuels that Brazil is organising for 2008. Together Brazil and Africa can help forge a global solution to the challenges of the 21st century.
Filed by Maria Robson under Other, Multilateral Trade, Development