Biofuels: The Good, The Bad and The Uncertain

Biofuel crops, like oil palm grown in Indonesia, has led to more deforestation. Scientists are still studying the effects of bioenergy on carbon stocks.

By Angela Dewan

Last decade, biofuels were talked about among world leaders like the deus ex machina of the world’s carbon emissions problem. By the middle of the decade, Europe and the United States led biofuel policy, setting ambitious targets to use cleaner energy in the name of climate change mitigation.

Leaders were soon criticised for their hastiness when it was realised that primary forest in the Brazilian Amazon and in Indonesia, among other places, was being logged to harvest biofuel crops or to make way for agriculture that had been displaced because of biofuel plantation expansion. Some believed this contributed to an increase in food prices, threatening food security for the poor. (more…)