Picture essay: The terrible legacy of biofuels
As the Rio+20 earth summit gets underway, the world is looking for a magic solution to our environmental problems and to meanwhile reduce poverty – but it won’t be biofuels.
Once, biofuels were seen as a miraculous, sustainable solution
to climate change. But growing evidence shows that the EU’s insatiable demand
for biofuels to run their cars has led to increased greenhouse gas emissions,
rising world food prices, increasing hunger and ruined lives.
As foreign-owned biofuel plantations multiply, more poor people
are being pushed off land they have farmed sustainably for years. 8000 hectares of common land has been taken from a community in the Kisarawe region of
Tanzania.
A saga of landgrabbing and lost livelihoods is being replicated
across Africa and elsewhere in the false name of ‘sustainable’ energy.
ActionAid is working with affected communities to help them
assert their rights and is calling for support for biofuels to end at Rio+20.
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