Dr Julia Tomei, Research Associate for UCL Energy and Institute of Sustainable Resource,s gives a free lecture, followed by tea and coffee. Her synopsis is below.
'Biofuels provide one of the few existing alternatives to fossil fuels in transport, yet they are an increasingly contentious energy option, as highlighted by the European Union’s decision to limit the quantity of conventional, food-based biofuels crops that can contribute to the 2020 fuel transport mix. Biofuels are a politically-driven commodity and, as such, both the demand and the institutional frameworks that govern the value chain have had to be created.
The EU is by design one of the few markets to address the sustainability impacts of biofuels. In this seminar I will examine the question of whether its objectives are being met. I focus on Guatemala, a country characterised by massive inequalities and increasing social violence, where since 2006 the production of biofuels, specifically sugarcane ethanol, has increased from almost nil to more than 94 million litres per year. Virtually all of this production is destined for the EU market, which means that the biofuel produced in Guatemala has also been certified ‘sustainable’. Drawing on my doctoral research, this seminar will explore whether sustainability governance, as developed by the European Union, captures those issues that are salient to the Guatemalan context. It will focus on issues of land, labour and local environments to show that, although the sugarcane sector encountered few difficulties in complying with certification schemes, the sustainability outcomes of sugarcane were by no means uniformly positive.
I argue that given Guatemala’s history of civil conflict, weak governance and unequal land tenure the likelihood of developing an equitable and sustainable biofuels sector appears limited.'
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