The scientists signed a letter, ahead of the COP30 climate change negotiations, which open next week in Belém, Brazil, as a response to Brazil seeking high-level support for a leaders’ pledge to quadruple so-called “sustainable fuel” use - including a doubling of biofuels consumption.
The letter says that there is mounting scientific evidence showing that, far from being a climate-friendly solution as many governments claim, on average the energy source is responsible for 16 percent more emissions than the fossil fuels they replace. Estimates indicate that doubling biofuel production would increase net global greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 34 MtCO₂e annually, the equivalent of putting 30 million new diesel cars on the road.
It also warns that such an expansion would have devastating environmental impacts in some of the world’s most biodiverse regions, consume scarce water resources, and contribute to agricultural runoff. Moreover, the scientists also caution that increased biofuels use will exacerbate global hunger by raising food prices, intensifying food price volatility, and diverting calories from human consumption.
Curbing unrestrained biofuels use is not without precedent. In 2020, the EU agreed to cap conventional (first-generation) crop-based biofuels at a 7 percent share of its transport energy, while waste- and residue-based biofuels are limited to 1.7 percent to encourage fuel innovations and reduce land-use impacts.
In biofuel producer nations, like Brazil and Indonesia, local NGOs are calling for a holistic approach to manage negative impacts, including caps on cultivation, better traceability, and investments in community-based governance and decentralised energy.
The scientists claim that Brazil’s biofuels push reflects a dangerous resurgence of biofuels as a global commodity that threatens to repeat the mistake of the “biofuels gold rush” in the mid-2000s that prompted large-scale deforestation, biodiversity loss, and human rights abuses.
“The evidence is clear, burning crops for fuel is a bad idea” said Cian Delaney, biofuels campaigner at T&E. “We can’t ignore the effects they have on the climate, ecology and food security. Governments must turn to truly sustainable alternatives rather than pushing solutions that, in many cases, do more harm than good,”
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