The Changing North–South and South–South Political Economy of Biofuels

Abstract

Since the 2007 food crisis, controversy has engulfed biofuels. Leading up to the crisis, world-wide interest in these fuels—which include biomass, biogas, bioethanol, and biodiesel—had been surging as states increasingly saw these as a way to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets and promote sustainable economic development. Now some consumers, notably in Europe, are scaling back demand as they worry that biofuels are responsible for increased food prices and deforestation. In contrast, some states—particularly Brazil and the USA, the world's leading bioethanol producers—continue to promote biofuel development, especially in developing countries. Partnerships arising from these efforts, we argue, reflect new patterns in the international political economy, where trade relationships among developing countries are strengthening, and where economic lines between developed and emerging developing countries are blurring. Given previously observed patterns of resource exploitation involving complex webs of North–South and South–South trade (such as for resources like palm oil in Indonesia), we anticipate that the emerging political economy of biofuels will repeat and reinforce many of these same environmentally destructive trends.

Notes

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2 D McCoy, ‘Plea for biofuel tax incentives', Europe Intelligence Wire, 17 March 2004, at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-20753163_ITM, accessed 7 January 2009.

3 A Chrisafis, ‘Greenpeace joins drivers for chat, tea and a message’, Guardian, 13 November 2000, p 8.

4 A Ringwald, ‘Could sustainable investment in developing countries address Europe's “biodiesel famine”?’, ma thesis, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 2006, pp 5–6.

5 See G Punter, D Rickeard, J-F Larivé, R Edwards, N Mortimer, R Horne, A Bauen & J Woods, Well-to-Wheel Evaluation for Production of Ethanol from Wheat, FWG-P-04-024, Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership Fuels Working Group, Well To Wheel Sub-Group, 2004, p 6, at http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/assets/viewpoints/Biofuels%20WTW%20final%20report.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

6 On food riots, see P Goodspeed, ‘Food crisis being felt around world: market chaos, riots’, National Post, 2 April 2008, at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id = 412984. On fuel riots, see J Lane, ‘Mozambique OKs $280 million, 18 000 hectare sugarcane bioenergy project: 213 Mgy ethanol, 82 MW power’, Biofuels Digest, 17 July 2008, at http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/07/17/mozambique-oks-280-million-18000-hectare-sugarcane-bioenergy-project-213-mgy-ethanol-82-mw-power/, webpages accessed 7 January 2009.

7 ‘White House defends food-based biofuels: administration backing decision as food costs rise at home and abroad’, Associated Press, 19 May 2008, at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24715112/, accessed 7 January 2009; and A Chakrabortty, ‘Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis—internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive’, Guardian, 4 July 2008, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy, accessed 10 August 2008.

8 JPW Scharlemann & WF Laurance, ‘How green are biofuels?’, Science, 319 (5859), 2008, pp 43–44.

9 J Fargione, J Hill, D Tilman, S Polasky & P Hawthorne, ‘Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt’, Science, 319 (5867), 2008, pp 1235–1238.

10 See, for example, AF Cooper, A Antkiewicz & TM Shaw, ‘Lessons from/for bricsam about South–North relations at the start of the 21st century: economic size trumps all else?’, International Studies Review, 9, 2007, pp 673–689.

11 Ibid, pp 674, 681.

12 A Sumner, ‘Foreign direct investment in developing countries: have we reached a policy “tipping point”?’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (2), 2008, pp 239–253.

13 Although the time periods of these figures are not identical, the values are indicative of the rapid growth of South–South trade.

14 P Supachai, South–South Trade, paper presented by the Secretary-General of unctad, Istanbul, 3 June 2008, at www.developing8.org/2008/06/03/southsouth-trade-paper-by-sg-unctad-secretary, accessed 7 January 2009.

15 See CM Dent, ‘The Asian Development Bank and developmental regionalism in East Asia’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (4), 2008, pp 767–786.

16 See A Antkiewicz & J Whalley, ‘bricsam and the non-wto’, Review of International Organizations, 1 (3), 2006, pp 237–261.

17 Asian countries' interests in Africa are discussed, for example, in WG Martin, ‘Africa's futures: from North–South to East–South?’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (2), 2008, pp 339–356; and H Campbell, ‘China in Africa: challenging US global hegemony’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (1), 2008, pp 89–105.

18 LI Lula da Silva, Statement of Brazil at the General Debate of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 25 September 2007, at www.un.org/webcast/ga/62/2007/pdfs/brazil-en.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

19 High Level Committee on South–South Cooperation, Fifteenth Session, New York, 29 May–1 June 2007, at http://tcdc.undp.org/HLC15_statem/Brazil.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

20 RM Sardenberg, ‘In Larger Freedom: Cluster I—Freedom from Want’, Statement by Ambassador Sardenberg, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN, New York, 26 April 2005, at http://www.un.int/brazil/speech/005d-rms-csnu-Clauster%20I-2604.htm, accessed 7 January 2009.

21 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Council of the International Bureau of Education, unesco/bie/C.56/Inf. 4, Geneva, 7 January 2008, p 3, at http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/policy/Council_PDFs/C56_pre_archived/Inf4_SouthSouthEng.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

22 F Forge, ‘Biofuels—an energy, environmental or agricultural policy?’, Library of Parliament, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Science and Technology Division, 8 February 2007, p 2, at http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0637-e.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

23 In research on international environmental negotiations, Karen Litfin describes ‘knowledge brokers’ as actors who ‘deftly defined the terms of the ozone debates’ (p 198). For biofuels, groups have been manoeuvring to control the framing of the issue, with positions ranging from biofuels as the ideal sustainable solution to biofuels as the cause of global hunger. See KT Litfin, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

24 Moreira et al, ‘Biofuels for transport, development, and climate change’, p 29; and J Goldemberg, ‘Ethanol for a sustainable energy future’, Science, 315 (5813), 2007, pp 808–810.

25 LI Lula da Silva, ‘Statement at the fao High-Level Conference on World Food Security: The Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy’, Rome, 3 June 2008.

26 US Department of State, ‘Joint Statement by United States and Brazil on Energy Security’, Office of the Spokesman, at http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2008/November/20081120140136eaifas0.879513.html, accessed 11 April 2009.

27 Forge, ‘Biofuels’, p 1.

28 Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (rspo), ‘About Sustainable Palm Oil’, 2008, at http://www.rspo.org/About_Sustainable_Palm_Oil.aspx, accessed 7 January 2009; and TMI Mahlia, MZ Abdulmuin, TMI Alamsyah & D Mukhlishien, ‘An alternative energy source from palm wastes industry for Malaysia and Indonesia’, Energy Conversion and Management, 42, 2001, pp 2109–2118.

29 L Pin Koh & DS Wilcove, ‘Cashing in palm oil for conservation’, Nature, 448, 2007, pp 993–994.

30 PF Donald, ‘Biodiversity impacts of some agricultural commodity production systems’, Conservation Biology, 18 (1), 2004, p 29.

31 LM Curran, SN Trigg, AK McDonald, D Astiani, YM Hardiono, P Siregar, I Caniago & E Kasischke, ‘Lowland forest loss in protected areas of Indonesian Borneo’, Science, 303 (5660), 2004, pp 1000–1003.

32 Pin Koh & Wilcove, ‘Cashing in palm oil for conservation’, pp 993–994.

33 J Smith, K Obidzinski, Subarudi & I Suramenggala, ‘Illegal logging, collusive corruption and fragmented governments in Kalimantan, Indonesia’, International Forestry Review, 5 (3), 2003, pp 293–302; and JYM Robertson & CP van Schaik, ‘Causal factors underlying the dramatic decline of the Sumatran orang-utan’, Oryx, 35, 2001, pp 26–38.

34 Factors leading to this increased pressure are identified by C Barlow, Z Zen & R Gondowarsito, ‘The Indonesian oil palm industry’, Oil Palm Industry Economic Journal, 3 (1), 2003, pp 8–15.

35 Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, ‘History of rspo’, ‘Register of rspo Members’, and ‘rspo Executive Board’, 2008, at http://www.rspo.org/History_of_RSPO.aspx, http://www.rspo.org/members.htm, and http://www.rspo.org/governance.htm, accessed 10 August 2008.

36 Emerging Markets Online, Biodiesel 2020: Global Market Survey, Feedstock Trends and Market Forecasts: Multi-Client Study, 2008, at http://www.emerging-markets.com/PDF/Biodiesel2020Study.pdf, accessed 10 August 2008.

37 rncos: Industry Research Solutions, ‘Global biofuel market analysis: description’, 2008, at http://rncos.com/Report/IM098.htm, accessed 10 August 2008.

38 T Neeley, ‘US biofuel subsidies too much: a global subsidies initiative report suggests that the US back off biofuel subsidies and examine other ways to boost the industry’, dtn, 29 October 2007, at http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2007/media_us_biofuel_too_much.pdf; and S Upton, ‘Subsidies to biofuels: a time to take stock’, Subsidy Watch: Bulletin of the Global Subsidies Initiative, 17, 2007, at http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/subsidy-watch/commentary/subsidies-biofuels-a-time-take-stock, webpages accessed 10 August 2008.

39 Barlow et al, ‘The Indonesian oil palm industry’, p 9.

40 JW van Gelder, ‘Greasy palms: European buyers of Indonesian palm oil’, Friends of the Earth, 2004, pp 17, 32–36, at http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/greasy_palms_buyers.pdf, accessed 7 January 2009.

41 Barlow et al, ‘The Indonesian oil palm industry’, p 9; van Gelder, ‘Greasy palms', p 15; and Pin Koh & Wilcove, ‘Cashing in palm oil for conservation’, pp 993–994.

42 News24, ‘Moz okays $280m biofuel project’, 16 July 2008, at http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2358517,00.html; and EnergyCurrent, ‘Roxol gets kbk to build ethanol plant’, 30 June 2008, at http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id = 3&storyid = 11516, webpages accessed 10 August 2008.

43 Not all mncs are on board with biofuels, however; other powerful interests in the USA, such as the American Meat Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, oppose the Alliance.