Biomass, bioenergy, environmental and livelihood benefits

Abstract

Not Available ; Biofuels are being supported by many governments for a range of perceived benefits including improved domestic energy security, reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when compared to fossil-fuel counterparts, and economic development and employment generation, particularly in rural areas. Life-cycle, cost-benefit and systems analyses, however, indicate that the expansion of biofuels can have complex effects on, and interactions with, land-use and food and fuel prices. This paper reviews the economic, environmental and social benefits and costs of biofuels using experiences from developing countries in Asia. The review reveals the following: (1) Biofuels are generally not economically competitive with fossil fuels and government support, though prevailing, is costly and questionable. (2) Although biofuels are generally viewed to be a threat to food security, if properly managed, their development could lead to improved productivity in the agriculture sector over the long-term with benefits for rural livelihoods and food security. (3) Even though reducing GHG emissions is a key driver for the development of biofuels, effects in terms of Gheewala S*, Damen B & Shi X, 2013. Biofuels: economic, environmental and social benefits and costs for developing countries in Asia. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (Q1), 4(6):497-511. 2 soil quality, biodiversity and water quality must also be assessed; the environmental benefits of biofuels are debatable and depend on a range of fuel-specific factors, management and agricultural practices. Based on this assessment a range of strategies are suggested to further improve the sustainability of biofuels in Asia. Liquid transportation fuels produced from agricultural products, commonly referred to as biofuels (or agrofuels), are being promoted in many countries worldwide due to a number of perceived benefits. These benefits can accrue to the economy from the utilization of local resources leading to reduced imports of crude in oil-importing countries; to the environment due to reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, renewability and biodegradability; and to society from rural development, poverty alleviation and improved energy access 1-3 . Many of the above benefits are particularly attractive to developing nations in Asia as they have a large agriculture base and many are also increasingly net importers of energy to fuel their rapidly growing economies. Thus, many countries in the region have already implemented ambitious targets and/or mandates to promote biofuels 4-8 . To support these commitments, governments have adopted or are considering a range of supplementary policies including price support for biofuels and feedstock production, tax advantages at both production and consumption stages, capital grants and/or loans and funding for research and development. In response, biofuels in Asia have been booming following the global boom that began in 2004-2005 and the associated demand from the US and EU markets. Total production of biofuels in Asia for the transport market has increased three fold from 1.5 billion litres in 2005 to an estimated 6.3 billion litres in 2012 9 . However, the pace of growth has declined since 2008 due to a combination of factors including the global financial crisis, higher commodity and feedstock prices and a plateau of biofuel production in China – the largest producer in the region. The slowing pace of biofuel production for the transport market in Asia has mirrored a global slowdown in biofuel output and comes at a time of increasing scrutiny over the purported sustainability benefits of biofuels. Utilization of local resources has been supplemented by imported fossil fuels and feedstock in the value chain negating some of the domestic security benefits of reductions in energy imports while also increasing GHG emissions. Reduction in GHGs has been further confounded by large emissions of carbon from land use change, especially those with large carbon stocks such as tropical forests or peatlands 10-13. Also, after decades of slow decline in food prices, recent surges on international markets and unprecedented levels of food price volatility, have prompted further investigation into the role that biofuels could have played in these developments 2, 14, 15. Thus, it is imperative to evaluate the experiences of biofuels in developing Asia and their sustainability implications, positive and negative, with the objective to identify the conditions under which positive effects could be maintained or enhanced and negative effects minimized. To this end, we take a look at each of the expected sustainability benefits of biofuels and based on plans as well as reported performance, evaluate the advantages, drawbacks and possibilities of improvement. 3 The paper contributes to the literature by providing a comparative assessment of the rationale behind government policy support for biofuels in Asia with documented evidence of their performance to date and associated economic, socio-economic and environmental costs and benefits. Based on this assessment some suggestions to enhance the benefits of biofuels in the region are made. The review proceeds as follows: following the introduction, the next section briefly summarizes a few key motivations and benefits behind the promotion of biofuels. Sections 2 to 4 review issues of biofuels from economic, social and environmental perspectives, respectively. Section 5 reviews some measures for improving the sustainability of biofuels. The last section offers some concluding remarks. ; Not Available