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Plants at the Pump: Biofuels, Climate Change, and Sustainability Print E-mail
bridges vol. 17, April 2008 / Feature Article

by Britt Childs


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This article summarizes and updates the conclusions of a report released by the World Resources Institute in December 2007. Please see Childs, Britt, and Rob Bradley. 2007. Plants at the Pump: Biofuels, Climate Change, and Sustainability. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online at: http://www.wri.org/publication/plants-at-the-pump.

An experimental ARS sugarcane field near Canal Point, Florida. - United States Department of Agriculture [http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/dec97/k7151-3.htm]
Stiff breeze for biofuels
An experimental ARS sugarcane field near Canal Point, Florida.
United States Department of Agriculture [http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/
graphics/photos/dec97/
k7151-3.htm]

In a world of rapidly rising carbon emissions and growing unease about imported oil, the appeal of renewable fuels is growing apace. Biofuels — liquids produced from plant matter that can substitute for gasoline or diesel — have become a hot topic from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley and from the halls of the European Parliament to the forests of Southeast Asia. They are attracting significant public support and private investment. Increasingly, however, governments and investors are under pressure to ensure that their support for biofuels does not generate negative consequences.


For those concerned about climate change, biofuels look timely. Transport fuels account for about 20 percent of CO2 emissions today, but the proportion is much higher in some wealthy countries, and the share is rising globally. Not only are transport fuels a fast-growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but their use is also closely linked with

such issues as mobility, lifestyle choices, land-use patterns, and international trade. As populations and incomes grow, all of these issues exert pressure toward greater fuel use. To consider only fuels in designing sustainable transport solutions is therefore inadequate.


In fact, biofuels are not a complete, nor even the primary, solution to our mobility needs. Biofuels have the potential to play some role in fulfilling future transport demand, but significant carbon displacement may not be feasible. Given the land-use changes that can result from expanded production of biofuels, negative impacts such as significant destruction of the world’s forests and rising food prices may undermine the potential benefits that biofuels could bring. Biofuels will not rescue policy makers from the uncomfortable but necessary task of using fuel prices, taxation, and mandated efficiencies to restrain transport fuel demand and decarbonize mobility.


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