Campaign against Climate Change

Agrofuels don’t ROC(k)

Demonstration against renewable energy subsidies for Agrofuels

Monday 12^th October, 6.30 pm

At DECC (Dept of Energy and Climate Change), 3 Whitehall Place, London

Photo-op at 12.30 – 1.30 pm

Called by Campaign against Climate Change, Biofuelwatch and Food not Fuel

The government is using renewable energy subsidies (Renewable Obligations Certificates – or ROCs) to fund power stations that use agrofuels. The government has already increased the demand for hugely damaging agrofuels by legislating to include a proportion of agrofuels in all petrol and diesel sold at British pumps (see our demo against this last year here). Now they are ramping up the demand yet further by using agrofuels for power stations and the government is funding this with renewable energy subsidies.

“Agrofuels” are biofuels produced using large scale industrial agriculture. This kind of agriculture – especially for instance the expansion of palm oil plantations - is a major driver of deforestation which in turn is one of the biggest causes of climate change. Even agrofuels produced from, say, European rapeseed oil that does not contribute directly to deforestation, cause a gap in supply that is filled by palm oil or soy that do cause deforestation, so that in the end the effect is the same. This means that so called ‘sustainability criteria’ are worthless. See more here. Meanwhile the use of crops for fuel instead of food is causing a global food crisis.

While the UK’s only significant wind turbine factory has just been closed and solar energy firms are struggling, up to twice as much subsidy (per megawatt of energy) is going to producing power from agrofuels than from onshore wind. In Italy and Germany, there are already large numbers of agrofuel power plants and virtually all of them run on palm oil because it is by far the cheapest feedstock. It is a pretty sure bet that UK plants will follow the same economic logic. The expansion of palm oil is the main factor behind an accelerating tide of deforestation that is set to wipe out Indonesia’s remaining primary forests with quite astronomical emissions as not only the forest but also the peat beneath them burns. Burning palm oil is probably the most environmentally damaging and climate negative way to produce power and yet that looks to be what the government is subsidising !

There is some good news, though, with some recent victories. Three recent applications for agrofuel power stations have been rejected by local authorities planning committees:

+ Blue NG's proposed power station in Southall, Ealing, West London was

rejected unanimously;

+ Vogen's proposed power station in Newport, South Wales, was rejected 8:1;

+ W4B Renewable Energy's proposed power station in Portland, Dorset was

rejected 7:4.

We need to build on these victories, make sure these decisions stand, and start to roll back the tide of environmental destruction and spiralling emissions that has come with increased agrofuel use.

Join the demo in London and spread the word about it beforehand if you can !

If you live a long way outside London and would be interested in helping to organise a simultaneous local event, please contact info@campaigncc.org and/or info@biofuelwatch.org.uk . We will list any additional local events on our websites nearer the time. It is already likely there will be events at Newport and Portland where the recent victories have been won.

More info

http://www.campaigncc.org/biofuels

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

http://www.foodnotfuel.org.uk