According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

CC250 It is particularly alarming that nations are trying to meet the requirements of the KyotoProtocol by using bio-energy classed as ‘carbon neutral’ despite large-scale greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and peat burning. By doing so, Annex 1 nations are simply exporting greenhouse gas emissions to the developing world and, in doing so, are contributing to greater emissions overall. There is a limited role for sustainable bio-energy, but this must not lead to an increase in monocultures or in the area of the planet under agriculture. There is growing opposition in many countries of the South to large-scale bio-fuel plantations grown to serve the OECD markets, and we support the local communities and NGOs resisting those developments. Within Europe and the UK we call for a suspension of all bio-energy targets and obligations until clear environmental and human rights standards for bio-fuel production accompany such targets. An import ban should also be imposed on products linked, directly or indirectly to deforestation and other negative social and environmental impacts.

CC251 In line with party policy on applying the precautionary principle, the Green Party calls for an immediate moratorium on agrofuels from largescale monocultures – a period for scientists and policy makers in the EU and western nations to gain a greater understanding of the true impacts on the social, human rights, land rights, climate impact, and biodiversity impact issues. The Green Party supports the Agrofuels Moratorium Call launched in July 2007 in Brussels (supported by over 100 organisations in its first week). Agrofuels is the term coined to describe liquid fuels from biomass, which consist of crops and trees grown specifically for that purpose on a large-scale.

CC252 The majority of biofuels are made from large-scale monocultures of oil palms, sugar cane, soya, maize, sugar beet, oilseed rape and jatropha. They contribute substantially more to to greenhouse gas emissions by nitrous oxide emissions from fertiliser use and by land conversion than are saved by burning slightly less fossil fuels. As such agrofuels are set to significantly accelerate climate change. Other problems include biodiversitylosses, water and soil degradation, human rights abuses (including the impoverishment and dispossession of local populations) and the loss of food sovereignty and food security. The impacts seen today result from a less than 1% market penetration of biofuels in Europe yet the EU target is 10% by 2020 and the UK are aiming for 5% by 2010. The European demand for biofuels is pushing up commodity prices and thus encouraging multi- billion dollar investment in infrastructure and refineries linked to largescale deforestation. The impacts of this investment could be irreversible and will open up tens of millions of hectares of virgin forest to land conversion and logging. An immediate moratorium is the only way to put the brakes on such disastrous investment decisions.

CC253 The moratorium would apply to European and British public sector incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures, including tree plantations, and a moratorium on EU imports of such agrofuels. This includes the immediate suspension of all targets, incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies which benefit agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, including financing through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid or loans from international finance organisations such as the World Bank. The moratorium called for by the signatories will apply only to agrofuels from large-scale monocultures (and GM biofuels) and their trade. It doesnot include biofuels from waste, such as waste vegetable oil or biogas from manure or sewage, or biomass grown and harvested sustainably by and for the benefit of local communities, rather than on large- scale monocultures.

CC254 The Green Party also calls for a moratorium on the use and development of genetically engineered crops and trees, microbes and fungi for the production of any biofuels including agrofuels, due to the high environmental risks involved in GM technology.

I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on UK Green Party’s Climate Change and Biofuels policies in the comments below?