Global Bioenergy Partnership: cut biofuel trade barries to create a win-win strategy

This week the Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium includes the presentation of the 2007 World Food Prize Thursday evening. The theme of this year's symposium is 'Biofoods and Biofuels: The Global Challenges of Emerging Technologies'. Ahead of the meeting, Corrado Clini, the director-general of the Italian Ministry for the Environment who also chairs the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) and is a featured speaker at the symposium, calls on wealthy countries in the North to cut trade barriers to make biofuels a global commodity, in what can become a win-win strategy for developing countries and the industrialised world.

Clini thus joins a growing number of energy experts, social think tanks, and food & agriculture analysts who support the case for a 'Biopact', which we started presenting several years ago. As our 'Biofuels Manifesto' points out, such a pact consists of policies and trade frameworks which allow developing countries to enjoy their comparative advantages for producing sustainable bioenergy products, which cut emissions, are highly efficient and can bring unprecedented opportunities for poverty alleviation amongst the rural populations in the South. We reprint the Corrado Clini's text here in full:

"While American farmers are in the midst of harvesting a record-setting corn crop and while ethanol and biodiesel production increases exponentially around the globe, the level of international trade in both biofuels and biofuels feedstocks remains woefully low", Clini writes.

"European countries and the United States have systems of subsidies and incentives in place to encourage and support domestic production of corn, soy, rapeseed, sugarcane and sunflowers - motivated, in part, by the goal of rapidly increasing production of biorenewable fuels from these crops.

These countries also impose tariffs on both raw biofuels feedstocks imported from abroad and on biofuels that are produced and refined overseas.

While such systems support robust domestic production, markets and profits, they de facto reduce the potential for biofuels production in tropical and subtropical countries in Africa, South America and Asia.

And that's unfortunate. These regions enjoy biomass productivity significantly higher than in temperate regions such as Europe and North America - according to some estimates, up to five times higher. Moreover, they have also proven themselves global leaders in the emerging areas of bioenergy.

Take Brazil. Besides having the distinction of being the world's first large-scale producer of ethanol, Brazil was able, over the past 30 years, to drive a revolution in biofuels research, technology and policy that contributed to its path toward comprehensive agricultural, industrial and social development.

Countries of the Caribbean region are another example of this dynamism. Without extensive internal market-support structures, they are nonetheless developing strong biofuels industries and taking advantage of existing preferential trade agreements with the United States and Europe.

International trade in biofuels provides win-win opportunities to all countries. For the United States and EU member nations, importing biofuels is a necessary precondition for meeting self-imposed targets for blending cleaner fuels and reducing emissions of fossil fuels.

For exporting countries, especially small and medium-sized developing countries, the promise of new markets will initiate and enhance industry and add much-needed economic value to raw agricultural and biomass products.

But a level playing field is essential - meaning, in part, reducing and eliminating trade barriers and phasing out trade-distorting subsidies. Prospective investors in biofuels facilities need the assurance that markets will be open and that there will be the scope for exports to allow producers to exploit economies of scale:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: trade :: subsidies :: tariffs :: developing countries ::

Labeling and certification of biofuels and related feedstocks may be instrumental in ensuring that widespread biofuels production and use will indeed lead to environmental improvements. Certification and labeling remain, however, a complex issue. Efforts should be deployed to ensure that the development of sustainability criteria and certification systems contributes to reaching environmental objectives without creating unnecessary barriers to international trade, especially to exports from developing countries.

At the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks, negotiations were launched for "the reduction or, as appropriate, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services." According to WTO members, renewable-energy products such as ethanol and biodiesel could be classified as environmental goods, but ongoing disagreements have hampered any conclusive result.

New and innovative forums have to be utilized to reach consensus and thereby create an open international market necessary to realize the potential benefits of biofuels in terms of sustainable development, technology transfer, mitigation of climate change and progress toward both energy and food security. Only then will biofuels become a truly sustainable global commodity."

Corrado Clini is the director-general of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea and also chairs the G8 Global Bioenergy Partnership. He is scheduled to be a featured speaker Thursday at the Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium.


In the July 2005 Gleneagles Plan of Action, the G8 +5 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) agreed to promote the continued development and commercialisation of renewable energy by launching a Global Bioenergy Partnership to support wider, cost effective, biomass and biofuels deployment, particularly in developing countries where biomass use is prevalent.

Following a consultation process among the developing and developed countries, international agencies and the private sector, the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) was launched during the Ministerial Segment of the 14th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD14) in New York on 11 May 2006.

The purpose of the Global Bioenergy Partnership is to provide a mechanism for Partners to organize, coordinate and implement targeted international research, development, demonstration and commercial activities related to production, delivery, conversion and use of biomass for energy, with a focus on developing countries.

GBEP provides also a forum to develop effective policy frameworks to:

• suggest rules and tools to promote sustainable biomass and bioenergy development;
• facilitate investments in bioenergy;
• promote project development and implementation;
• foster R&D and commercial bioenergy activities.

GBEP's main functions are to:

• promote global high-level policy dialogue on bioenergy and facilitate international cooperation;
• support national and regional bioenergy policy-making and market development;
• favour efficient and sustainable uses of biomass and develop project activities in the bioenergy field;
• foster exchange of information, skills and technologies through bilateral and multilateral collaboration;
• facilitate bioenergy integration into energy markets by tackling specific barriers in the supply chain;
• Act as a cross-cutting initiative, working in synergy with other relevant activities, avoiding duplications

GBEP works in synergy with other relevant initiatives, including:

• FAO's International Bioenergy Platform (IBEP);
• International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE);
• Mediterranean Renewable Energy Programme (MEDREP);
• Methane to Markets;
• Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21);
• Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP);
• UNCTAD BioFuels Initiative;
• Bioenergy Implementing Agreements and related tasks of the IEA.

References:
Corrado Clini: "Cut trade barriers to make biofuels a global commodity", in: DesMoinesRegister - October 17, 2007.