Assumptions in the European Union biofuels policy: frictions with experiences in Germany, Brazil and Mozambique.
نویسندگان
چکیده
The biofuel project is an agro-industrial development and politically contested policy process where governments increasingly become global actors. European Union (EU) biofuels policy rests upon arguments about societal benefits of three main kinds - namely, environmental protection (especially greenhouse gas savings), energy security and rural development, especially in the global South. Each argument involves optimistic assumptions about what the putative benefits mean and how they can be fulfilled. After examining those assumptions, we compare them with experiences in three countries - Germany, Brazil and Mozambique - which have various links to each other and to the EU through biofuels. In those case studies, there are fundamental contradictions between EU policy assumptions and practices in the real world, involving frictional encounters among biofuel promoters as well as with people adversely affected. Such contradictions may intensify with the future rise of biofuels and so warrant systematic attention.
منابع مشابه
Reducing CO2 Emissions from Road Transport - Overview of the Main Initiatives and Technical Measures Proposed to Date in Europe
The demand for fossil fuel in the transport sector is constantly increasing and transportation is ranked amongst the highest greenhouse emitting sectors globally. Today, tackling CO2 emissions from road transport a widely discussed topic and constitutes a milestone towards reaching a sustainable, carbon neutral economy. This challenge is being described in various initiatives adopted in the ...
متن کاملThe Global Health Policies of the EU and its Member States: A Common Vision?
Background This article assesses the global health policies of the European Union (EU) and those of its individual member states. So far EU and public health scholars have paid little heed to this, despite the large budgets involved in this area. While the European Commission has attempted to define the ‘EU role in Global Health’ in 2010, member states are active in the domain of global health ...
متن کاملThe Viability of Biofuels in Developing Countries: Successes, Failures, and Challenges
In the last few decades, finding alternatives to fossil fuels has become a hot issue across all international frontiers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shed light on the feasibility of using biofuels to meet the growing energy demand as well as to reduce CO2 emissions which are a major cause of global warming, especially in the transportation sector. The...
متن کاملPlanning and Environmental Policy Research Series Working Papers 2004 Stimulating the Use of Biofuels in the European Union: Implications for Climate Change Policy
The substitution of fossil fuels with biofuels has been proposed in the European Union (EU) as part of a strategy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from road transport, increase security of energy supply and support development of rural communities. In this paper, we examine this opportunity, by focusing on one of these purported benefits, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The cost ...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- The Journal of peasant studies
دوره 37 4 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2010