Campaign attacks Government’s biofuels policy
Originally posted 9 May, 2007 — video link added 7 June, 2007
By Clemmie Gleeson
A COALITION of some of UK’s most powerful environmental groups has launched an advertising campaign attacking the Government’s biofuels policy.
See the campaign video on YouTube
Go directly to Friends of the Earth’s Campaign site
The adverts, which have been placed in national newspapers feature a petrol pump being held to the head of an orang-utan. The slogan says: “Tell the Government to choose the right biofuel. Or the orang-utan gets it.”The groups including Friends of the Earth, RSPB, Greenpeace and WWF-UK believe that the UK Government’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (ReTFO) could, in its present form, lead to biofuel production causing the destruction of rainforests and wetlands.They are demanding that the ReTFO is tightened up to ensure that biofuel producers meet minimum greenhouse gas and sustainability standards. They also want to see environmental audits introduced for the whole life-cycle of the fuels, from growing the crops to burning the fuel in the car.The adverts ask members of the public to write to Government and demand tough, compulsory standards.
It comes after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last week stating that protecting the world’s forests is one of the single biggest steps the international community can take to lessen the effects of climate change.
John Alker, senior public affairs officer at WWF-UK said that biofuels could offer part of the solution to climate change: “But Government needs to get this policy right in order to do so.”
Dr Douglas Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace described the ReTFO as ‘complacent’. “It could see biofuel production wrecking the climate rather than helping it. The Government must sort out this botched plan or risk losing the value that biofuels could offer.”
Ed Matthew from Friends of the Earth said that the Government has got its priorities wrong. “Its biofuels proposals are so weak that they are in real danger of increasing global warming emissions, not reducing them.”
Meanwhile, Dr Mark Avery, conservation director at the RSPB, said that without environmental standards, biofuels are ‘a green con’.
Read the original post here:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=9542
