Five senior scientists have written to the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr R K Pachauri, to highlight what they see as "serious and dangerous deficiencies" in the notes on biofuels in the recently released IPCC AR4 Mitigation book. The concerns of the scientists, and the letter, were revealed on the Grain website (www.grain.org) yesterday (1st November) ahead of the IPCC Synthesis Report's which is expected to be approved by national delegations this month.

full text of the letter

The five scientists are; Professor David Pimentel from Cornell University, Professor Tad Patzek from the University of California, Berkeley, Professor Dr. Florian Siegert from RSS GmbH, Dr. Mario Giampietro the ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Professor Helmut Haberl from Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.

Their letter highlights that no proof has been given, even when requested from the relevant Author, of the claim in the SPM (Summary for Policy Makers) that biofuel blending, as a policy, measure or instrument, had been "environmentally effective…in at least a number of national cases."

That claim, being a Brazilian amendment passed at the last IPCC plenary session, has reappeared in a bolder form in the latest UN Global Environment Outlook.

The Transport chapter, they say, omitted to warn that even modest growth of biofuels, by using up farmland or pasture, often leads to cropland as a whole expanding at the expense of natural forests and grassland.  The carbon emissions from such land-use change can negate any benefits for decades or centuries.  This was occurring in South East Asia, and possibly now in South America, in partial response to EU and US biofuel incentives.

The studies of biofuel emissions balances used by the IPCC did not model the effects of such outcomes.  Yet these would need to be included in any assessment of whether  biofuel blending programmes or incentives had been "environmentally effective", said the five scientists.

They are now calling for the full basis for this claim in the SPM to be revealed, or for the claim to be withdrawn.

The IPCC advice also failed to note that growing biofuels was currently a very inefficient use of land for mitigation, compared with growing solid fuel to replace coal.  "That is elementary to any discussion of bioenergy," said Helmut Haberl of Klagenfurt University.

David Pimentel, of Cornell University, added: "Climate change is a most pressing issue for humanity, and world leaders need to take the issue of mitigation much more seriously than they have to date.  Having said that, decision-makers need to be given balanced and justified advice.  These particular notes, as they stand, will be used to support erroneous and disastrous decisions, and that is simply not right".

IPCC mitigation book