RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 05 (IPS) – Holding this yr’s presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) giant industrial and rising economies is permitting Brazil to push ahead the dream of making a world biofuels market with out the present commerce obstacles.
Brazil is making an attempt, a minimum of for the reason that starting of this century, to unencumber international commerce in ethanol, however to this point with out success. The situation is extra beneficial now, with the worsening of the local weather disaster and different international locations becoming a member of the manufacturing and consumption of bioenergy.
Presiding the G20 this yr, Brazil is accountable for the problems and tasks to be mentioned, creating working teams and selling agreements, which is able to crystallise on the group’s annual summit to be held on 18-19 November in Rio de Janeiro.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s authorities has promoted social points and included biofuels as a central side of the vitality transition. A number of of its proposals have been authorised in sectoral working teams or conferences of ministers, specialists and civil society all through 2024.
“The present context, pushed by Brazil’s extra lively management within the G20 and regulatory progress on various fuels, affords a extra optimistic outlook for the nation’s success in increasing its biofuels market,” summarised Rafaela Guedes, senior fellow on the Brazilian Centre for Worldwide Relations (Cebri).
“The main target is now not restricted to ethanol,” she mentioned in an interview with IPS in Rio de Janeiro. New merchandise, equivalent to sustainable aviation gasoline (SAF) and bio-bunker for maritime transport, open up a number of markets and scale back the chance of dominant suppliers.
These are joined by biodiesel and inexperienced diesel, each derived from animal and vegetable inputs however totally different of their manufacturing course of and properties, the latter being chemically an identical to fossil diesel.
Then there may be ethanol, already produced on a big scale, and biomethane, equal to pure fuel and the product of refining biogas extracted from animal manure, and agricultural, city and industrial waste.
All these merchandise gained new rules and incentives in Brazil by the so-called Future Fuels Legislation, handed by the legislative Nationwide Congress in September and efficient from 8 October 2024.
The brand new laws ought to appeal to funding and scale back commerce obstacles by defining guidelines and requirements in a rustic that leads biofuel manufacturing and presents itself as “a provider and likewise a strategic accomplice for innovation and vitality safety”, mentioned Guedes, an economist specialising in vitality transition.
Worry of dependence
Ethanol thrived as a free commerce gasoline partly out of concern of being held hostage by just a few producers. Brazil and the US account for round 80% of its international manufacturing, with 35.4 billion litres and 58 billion litres respectively in 2023.
Brazil tried to encourage manufacturing in international locations with excessive manufacturing or potential for elevated sugar cane planting, equivalent to India, Cuba and Mexico, so as to decrease obstacles to worldwide ethanol commerce.
Along with the concern of dependency, environmental and meals safety issues stay one other stumbling block. It’s argued, particularly in Europe, that bioenergy takes land away from meals manufacturing.
That was the declare of Cuba, which till the Nineteen Eighties was the world’s largest exporter of sugar, however whose sugar cane manufacturing subsequently fell to the purpose the place it’s now virtually restricted to supplying the home market of 10 million inhabitants, who’re affected by a extreme vitality disaster.
However now India, beforehand reluctant, has joined ethanol manufacturing, as produce other international locations, since its consumption, blended with gasoline, has unfold to greater than 70 international locations. Funding in biofuels has elevated so as to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions.
“This diversification of producers reduces the opportunity of monopolies” and thus the fears of dependency, in line with Guedes, who says development within the manufacturing capability of rising international locations and the resultant growth of world provide are beneficial elements for a freer international marketplace for biofuels.
“India has invested closely in biofuels in its vitality safety and emissions discount technique. Its insurance policies of utilizing agricultural waste to supply ethanol and biodiesel contribute to growing its productive capability, as a possible exporter within the medium time period,” she cited for example.
Different Asian and Latin American international locations are utilizing their considerable biomass and natural waste assets to supply bioenergy, biomethane and inexperienced diesel, in what represents one other mannequin.
Inputs are waste, not meals
Restrictions primarily based on meals safety have been additionally relaxed as a result of biofuels are largely constituted of waste, whether or not agricultural, city or industrial.
Second-generation (2G) ethanol, constituted of waste equivalent to bagasse, is one other resolution. The US and Brazil have vegetation producing it, that are set for speedy growth.
In Brazil, Raizen, a big sugar and bioenergy producer with the participation of the British oil consortium Shell, has been working its first 2G ethanol vegetation since 2015 and estimates that this expertise can produce 50% extra ethanol than the same space planted with sugarcane.
Guedes additionally provides that the Worldwide Vitality Company has outlined sustainable agricultural practices, equivalent to crop-livestock-forest integration, which is increasing in Brazil, traceability in manufacturing chains and standards for outlining sustainable vitality, which strengthen confidence in biofuels that profit the local weather.
These are insurance policies that promote so-called low-carbon agriculture, protect soil high quality and be certain that Brazil’s agricultural frontiers can develop sustainably and with out affecting meals safety, she mentioned.
Ambiguity
However Brazil’s resolution to advertise biofuels, even internationally, causes bewilderment in line with Pedro de Camargo Neto, a cattle rancher who leads a motion of agribusiness, that of huge farmers, that seeks to reconcile his sector with environmentalism, after a long time of cussed antagonism.
“There’s a battle of pursuits, of cut up character. If Brazil needs to guide in biofuels, it should rule out new oil exploration,” he instructed IPS by phone from Bandeirantes, a municipality within the central-western state of Mato Grosso do Sul, the place he has a farm.
He criticizes the intention of Petrobras, the nationwide oil firm, to drill close to the mouth of the Amazon River seeking oil deposits.
Giant oil deposits are believed to exist within the Equatorial Margin in northern Brazil, an extension of the ocean basin that already produces oil in Guyana and Suriname.
New and considerable shares would make oil and fuel cheaper, to the detriment of biofuels, argued Camargo, who has beforehand chaired the Brazilian Rural Society, a key farmers’ group, and held prime positions within the agriculture ministry.
“Brazil doesn’t know what it needs,” he mentioned.
It’s because it promotes a free and international marketplace for biofuels, for financial and environmental causes, and on the similar time needs to grow to be an oil producer, to the detriment of the local weather and its personal technique.
The nation at present ranks eighth on the earth in oil manufacturing, with 4.3 million barrels (every holding 159 litres) per day on common in 2023.
The nation ought to advocate worldwide measures to make fossil fuels costlier. This could allow a biofuels growth in every single place, with elevated funding in a market wherein Brazil is already a pacesetter. Europe has already taken steps on this course, Camargo mentioned.
Oil exploration close to the mouth of the Amazon is blocked by calls for from the Brazilian Institute of Atmosphere and Renewable Pure Sources, which thought-about Petrobras’ evaluations and ensures inadequate.
An authorisation or denial of exploratory drilling will probably be ‘technical’, primarily based on native environmental impacts, in line with Atmosphere Minister Marina Silva.
This can be a mistake, in line with Camargo, who requires a broader evaluation, not due to the native penalties, however because of the international climatic results, i.e. greenhouse fuel emissions, and due to the financial technique of prioritising biofuels, which additionally favours the nation’s overseas coverage.
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