Rupert Read, Norwich Green Party Councillor, and Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia

Let’s start with this, from the agrofuels-mad U.S. of A. One remarkable detail that stands out in this (worrying) article is that the Environmental Protection Agency (sic.) analysis here accounts for the reduction in food consumption which is associated with using foodstuffs for fuel as a GHG benefit… Quick translation: Starving people is supposed to be good for the planet! That moment of madness tells you a lot about the rise of agrofuels, which is all about profit, and none about reducing GHG emissions, let along about being good for people.

The issue of land-use being altered away from food toward fuels is big in Europe right now too. Take this newspaper headline, again from just last week: 'Four environmental groups have sued the European Union's executive for withholding documents they say will add to a growing dossier of evidence that biofuels harm the environment and push up food prices'. In November 2008, eight of the largest agrofuel-producing countries, including Brazil and Indonesia, threatened the EU that they would go to the WTO if restrictions on agrofuels-influenced land-use change were not removed: this was following a massive lobbying effort by agrofuel companies in Brussels. Yet land-use-effects have by far the greatest negative climatic impacts of agrofuels. Removing any land use restrictions gives producer countries a free license to destroy vital ecosystems and habitats

… Bottom-line: If we want to feed people, rather than cars, and if we want to stop rainforests etc. being trashed to set up monocultures, then we must stop agrofuels companies and mass-producer states from dominating the debate. The actions of these four environmental groups in taking the EU to court over this is thus very welcome.

But there has been bad news as well as good lately for those of us campaigning against agrofuels. Take this Guardian article for instance. The recent draft communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament on the sustainability of biofuels says naturalforests have to be protected. But the devil is in the definition of a forest. The document says:

'Continuously forested areas are defined as areas where trees have reached, or can reach, a height of five metres, making up a crown cover of more than30%. They would normally include natural forest, forest plantations and other plantations such as palm oil. This means that a change from orest to oil palm would not per se constitute a breach of the criterion (for sustainability)'.

 - If plantation bosses succeed in redefining palm oil as forestry then that will attract double subsidies from European taxpayers - for managing forests and for producing agrofuels. Double subsidies – for ripping up rainforests!

The hugest long-term threat posed by the agrofuels business is in greenwashing aviation. The aviation industry is ‘committed’ to reducing their CO2 by more than 90% by 2050. This is simply and utterly impossible, given the industry’s massive expansion plans. So the aviation industry pretends that they will put the entire aviation sector on to agrofuels, and greenwashes their emissions in the process. The problem is that agrofuels, in part for the reasons given above, are far more destructive to the environment (in most cases) than kerosene…

Last but not least, check this out. This email, that some MEPs received last week from the dismal Burston Marsteller PR firm, and that at least one of them had the courage to pass onto us and thus to make public, will give you some idea of the kind of massive lobbying effort that the agrofuels profiteers are currently engaged in, as they endeavour to replace biodiversity and resilience with monocultures – and temporary profits.  

I’ve been campaigning against industrial biofuels for nearly a decade now. It is absolutely vital that we have politicians in Westminster as well as in Brussels who are committed to being truly green, not to the ludicrous greenwash of agrofuels. Please think about that, in the run-up to May 6th.

(Many thanks to Andrew Boswell, Mark Crutchley and other friends and colleagues who helped me research this piece.)

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Josie Cohen, Campaigns Officer

Now, this requires a bit of a drum roll ...

Because this blog post features the last of the videos from the biofuels debate! This one is the Q&A, where the panelists take on all the burning questions from the audience - of which there were a few, because the topic of biofuels is hotly debated.

We say that biofuels are bad - because they contribute to climate change and increase global hunger. Among many others, Kevin Richter of Friends of the Earth and Ben Webster of The Times agreed with us on this.

Check out the below video and see how you think the panelists fared at our big biofuels debate, under the scrutiny of the audience members. And remember - this may be the final video clip from our event, but the debate is still alive and kicking online. So get involved!

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Lotty Reynolds, Campaigner

We started campaigning for  a  supermarket watchdog two years ago. Since then you've taken more than 40,000 actions, pressuring Lord Mandelson, writing to your MPs  and enjoying our giant bananas.  Two weeks ago, your valiant support helped make the difference:  all three main parties agreed that there should be a watchdog to make supermarkets play fair with the people who supply our food.

Thank-you for everything you've done to support some of the world's most vulnerable people

What next?
There's still a debate about the exact powers of the watchdog, and about whether it will be able to protect people overseas from. The consultation ends on 30th April, and we urgently need you to take part.

Submit an email to the consultation, and make sure they make the right decision.

Send your message to Steve Smith at GSCOPmonitoringbody@bis.gsi.gov.uk . We've given you some suggested text below, but please write whatever you like, making sure that Department for Business knows how strongly you feel about the people who produce your food.

Eva Watkinson, Campaigns Officer

Over the next few months in the run-up to the general election parliamentary candidates will literally be banging down our doors to try and work out what issues we care about. This is a golden opportunity to make sure our voices are heard on the issue that matters most – the root causes of poverty and how to tackle them.

To make the most of this we are putting on a free campaigns workshop to get us tooled up on the issues, and how to make change happen. We’ll be hearing from experts on the Robin Hood Tax – the idea for a tiny tax on the banks, which has taken the country by storm, and how stopping tax-dodging could net billions for developing countries.

There will also be a chance to hear directly from people who work in parliament on what does and doesn’t work in campaigning. Do all those postcards really make a difference? How effective is it if we meet them in person, and how best can we get our message across? A chance to meet and mingle with other campaigners and free lunch included, what more could you ask!?

So, the basics:

When? Saturday 10th April 1-5 pm
Where? Human Rights Action Centre
What? free campaigns training
Book your place: email us at campaign@actionaid.org

Spaces are limited so please book if you want a spot.

We're protesting against plans to increase the UK's use of biofuels, outside the Department for Transport on 1 April.

So come and join us! 

Why are we protesting?

The Department for Transport is thinking about making the UK use 4x the amount of biofuels in our petrol and diesel. 

So, more and more land in the developing world will be used to grow biofuels instead of food. This is not OK because:

* It will push up food prices
* It pushes people off their land with no choice, and no compensation.

This makes it much harder for people in the developing world to feed themselves and their families.

What are the details of the protest?

On 1 April, ActionAid will 'reclaim land for food not fuel' outside the Department for Transport. We'll be taking over an area -  demanding that land is given back to people in developing countries for growing their food on.

If you can take part, please email campaign@actionaid.org - We are waiting to hear from you! The more people who come along, the stronger our voice will be, so please do come along.

If you can’t be there in person...

Track what's happening at the offline protest by following @actionaidliz and join in the protest online. Simply:

* Email the department for transport - email Lord Adonis, the Secretary of State for Transport, telling him to cut biofuels targets

* Tweet the department for transport - you can either retweet @actionaidliz on 1 April, or make up your own tweet along the lines of: on #aprilfoolsday don't be a #biofool - say no @dft to #biofuels in UK petrol! http://cot.ag/bboA5w

* Spread the word on Facebook, Twitter and by emailing your friends and colleagues. We suggests something like: This April Fools Day, don't let the department for Transport take you for a biofool! Make sure the UK is not putting poor people's food into UK cars. Spread the word and email the department for transport http://cot.ag/bboA5w

Hope you have a great April Fools Day - remember, don't be a Biofool - get biofuels out of UK cars!

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Richard George, Roads and Climate Campaigner for campaign for better transport

The Government thinks we need biofuels, not to tackle climate change, but to cater for a predicted increase in demand for car travel. The thinking goes that to achieve economic growth, in line with past behaviour, we can all expect to travel further than we do today, in cars carrying fewer passengers. Instead of trying to correct this, the political path of least resistance is to let it happen.

But that means finding a way to square the circle: to reduce carbon emissions while increasing the amount of driving we do. Hence the fixation with biofuels, electric vehicles and scrappage schemes, which somehow might allow us all to drive further while saving the planet. This, in political terms, would be the Holy Grail: government hits its carbon reductions targets without anyone having to change their behaviour.

That biofuels cause more harm than fossil fuels (to quote a recent Times article) is beside the point. Even if biofuels could provide a carbon-neutral energy source without harming the environment, they’d still be a foolish course to pursue, because climate change is not the only problem transport poses:

    * Last year 2,500 people were killed in road traffic collisions;
    * Around 7,000 people die each year in London alone from respiratory diseases caused by poor air quality (itself caused by the toxic blend of gases belched out of our exhausts); 
    * We all waste countless hours sitting in traffic jams, but no matter how much extra road space we add, it just fills up with more traffic.

So business as usual isn’t an option, even without climate change.

Instead of placing all our eggs in the biofuels basket we should be designing our towns and cities to a human scale, with the services we need close enough to walk or cycle to. We know that decent planning and behavioural change programmes work, because the Government has been piloting them in towns and cities across the UK for several years. The only sustainable way to tackle transport’s carbon footprint is to reduce the need to travel, instead of desperately trying to find ways to accommodate the impacts of car dependant development, with its accompanying pollution and gridlock.

But perhaps the most frustrating feature of biofuels – other than deforestation, impact on indigenous people, the use of food for fuel and all the other problems of biofuels – is that Ministers use them as an excuse for inaction. Hailing biofuels as a panacea means not needing to provide people with alternatives to car use, because biofuels (allegedly) make cars greener. We can keep spending our limited budgets building new roads, instead of on buses, or trams, or on making walking and cycling more attractive, because biofuels will reduce our emissions without us having to do anything. Yet even here Whitehall can’t get it right. Whoever wrote the Department for Transport’s Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future forgot to account for the carbon produced when growing and transporting fuels. Oops! Biofuels aren’t just the wrong solution: they’re a hindrance to the right one. The only way to unpick this problem is to take biofuels – and all the other false solutions – off the table

Richard George is the Roads and Climate Campaigner for campaign for better transport which is the UK’s leading authority on sustainable transport.

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