First, the stem of the plant is collected, crushed and crushed. The extracted juice is then combined with bacteria and yeast in large bioreactors, where the sugars are metabolized and converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. From there, the liquid is typically distilled to maximize the ethanol concentration before blending it with gasoline.
You know the end products are biofuels, which are primarily produced from food crops like sugar cane and corn and are backed by everyone from agricultural lobbyists to activists to billionaires. Biofuels were developed decades ago as a cheaper, greener alternative to polluting gasoline. As adoption expands – now to the point that a pro-biofuel agenda is being promoted at COP30 this week in Belem, Brazil – their impact on the environment and food availability remains a source of fierce debate.
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The governments of Brazil, Italy, Japan and India are sponsoring a new commitment calling for the rapid global deployment of biofuels as a commitment to decarbonize the transport energy sector.
Although pledge text itself is vague, as is usually the case with most COP commitments, and the purpose is embedded in the accompanying document. International Energy Agency report It's clear: expand global use of so-called clean fuels by at least four times above 2024 levels to by 2035Clean fuels cover 10 percent of global road transport demand, 15 percent of aviation demand and 35 percent of marine fuel demand. By Friday, the last official day of COP30, at least 23 countries joined this promise, and the Brazilian delegates worked “hand in hand with industry groups” to include pro-biofuel language in the final agreement at the summit.
“Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa – they need to improve their efficiency, their energy, and Brazil has a model for this. [in its rollout of biofuels]Roberto Rodriguez, Brazil's special envoy for agriculture at the summit, said at the CC meeting last weekend. At the time of publication of this article, statements in support of biofuels had not yet entered the The latest draft text outlining the main outcomes of the summit has been published Friday – although it seems that the summit may end with no deal.
Although scientists continue to experiment with using other feedstocks to produce biofuels – a list that includes agricultural and forestry waste, cooking oils and algae – the bulk of raw materials almost exclusively comes from the fields. Different types of food crops are used to produce different types of biofuels; sugary and starchy crops such as sugarcane, wheat and corn are often processed into ethanol; while oilseeds such as soybeans, canola and palm oil are mainly used to produce biodiesel.
The cycle goes something like this: Farmers, desperate to replace arable land lost to biofuels, cut down more forests and plow up more grasslands, leading to deforestation that tends to release far more carbon than burning biofuels saves. But as large-scale production continues to expand, there may be a shortage of land, water and energy A big new biofuel boom is possible, prompting many researchers and climate activists to question whether countries should seek to expand these markets at all. (Thomson Reuters reported that global biofuel production increased ninefold since 2000.) Biofuels make up the vast majority of “green fuels” currently used worldwide.
Analysis of a Clean Transportation Advocacy Organization published last month found that due to indirect impacts on agriculture and land use, biofuels are responsible for 16 percent more CO2 emissions worldwide than the polluting fossil fuels they replace. In fact, the report suggests that by 2030, growing biofuel crops could require land equivalent to the size of France. More than 40 million hectares of arable land on Earth have already been allocated for biofuel production. an area roughly the size of Paraguay. The EU No Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) lists soybeans as one of the commodities that contribute to deforestation worldwide.
“While countries are right to divest from fossil fuels, they also need to ensure that their plans do not cause unintended consequences, such as further deforestation at home or abroad,” said Janet Ranganathan, managing director of strategy, learning and results at the World Resources Institute. in the statement in response to Belen's promise. She added that the rapid expansion of global biofuel production would have “serious consequences for the world's lands, especially without guardrails to prevent the large-scale expansion of land devoted to biofuels, resulting in ecosystem loss.”
Other environmental issues it turned out that Problems associated with converting food crops into biofuels include water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, air pollution and soil erosion. One studyA study conducted a decade ago found that when all the resources needed to produce the different types of ethanol or biodiesel are taken into account—machines, seeds, water, electricity, fertilizer, transportation, etc.—the production of fuel ethanol or biodiesel requires significantly more energy than it creates.
However, it's no surprise that Brazil is betting big on biofuels at COP30. In Brazil, biofuels account for about a quarter transport fuel – a surprisingly high proportion compared to most other countries. And this share ethanol from sugarcane predominatesis still on the rise, and Belen's promise is indicative of the country's intended trajectory.
This was reported by a representative of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. Guardian that “proponents of the pledge (which include Japan, Italy, India, among others) call on countries to support a quadrupling of the production and use of clean fuels—a group of gaseous and liquid fuels that includes e-fuels, biogas, biofuels, hydrogen and its derivatives.” They added that the target is based on a new IEA report, which emphasizes that increased production is necessary to aggressively cut emissions. This report estimates that if current and proposed national and international policies are implemented and fully legislated, global biofuel use and production will double by 2035. “The word 'sustainable' is not used lightly in either the report or pledges,” the spokesman said.
The problem, of course, is how emissions from ethanol production are measured in the first place. Like many other climate sources, scientists argue that tracking greenhouse gas emissions from ethanol fuels must take into account emissions at every stage – production, refining, distribution and vehicle use. However, this is not always the case: in fact, in 2024 paper discovered that Brazil national biofuels policy does not take into account all direct and indirect emissions in its calculations.
According to University of Minnesota environmental scientist Jason Hill, these exceptions are indicative of a broader trend. “In general, either these studies did not include [direct and indirect emissions]or they have found ways to spread these effects over expected production, decades, centuries, etc., which tends to weaken these effects. So accounting practices don't really match what the best science shows,” said Hill, who studies the environmental and economic impacts of food, energy and biofuel production.
In short: more biofuels means either more intensive agriculture on a smaller share of available arable land, which has its own detrimental environmental consequences, or more arable land, and Emissions from land use and environmental impacts what it can carry. “Producing biofuels today is already a bad idea. [that] doubles down on the solution to an existing problem,” Hill said.
Moreover, switching crops like corn and soybeans from plates to plates to fuel tanks not only causes cutthroat competition for land and resources, but can also cause food prices to skyrocket and leave the world's most vulnerable populations with less to eat.
A 2022 analysis The American Renewable Fuel Standard, the world's largest biofuel program, found that it has driven up food prices for Americans, with corn prices rising 30 percent and other crops such as soybeans and wheat up about 20 percent. This caused a domino effect: an increase in annual fertilizer use nationwide to 8 percent and water degradants to 5 percent. The carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the mandate ended up at least equaling the polluting impact of gasoline.
“Biofuel mandates essentially create a baseline demand that could leave food crops on the sidelines,” says Ginny Braich, a data scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who has served as a senior adviser to state clean technology and emissions reduction programs. This is due to the problem of supply and demand for food crops: increased competition for raw materials leads to higher prices for food, feed and agricultural inputs.
When biofuel mandates exist, as recommended in the IEA report underlying Belen's promise, demand remains inelastic—regardless of changes in yields, growing and weather conditions, prices or markets. Suppose there is a huge drought that reduces crop yields. For example, basic demand for biofuels still needs to be met despite dwindling food supplies. From a supply side, more area under biofuel cultivation typically means less area available for growing food crops, which can lead to higher prices along with supply shortages and sharp increases in the cost of seeds, inputs and land.
The nutritional impact should also be considered, Breich says. When food becomes more expensive, not only does people's diets change, but crop patterns are already showing unfavorable changes in dietary diversity, which may be exacerbated by further concentration on fewer crops. Belen's promise and Brazil's intention to lead the global expansion of the biofuels market do not bode well for either people's food availability or the future of the planet, Braich warns.
“It seems quite ironic that Brazil promotes large-scale deployment of biofuels and is also seen as a protector of forests,” she said. “It's better than decarbonization and rhetoric about selling fossil fuels without real transition paths? Yes, but in many ways it is also greenwashing.
