New Report Warns Biofuel Crop Cultivation May Worsen Global Warming

London, England (AHN) - Expanding biofuel crop plantations through deforestation worsens global warming and harms local livelihoods and the environment, says the International Institute for Environment and Development in a new report.

The report, "Up In Smoke? Asia and the Pacific", presents new evidence that biofuels could turn into a rush for "fools gold" across Asia as huge social and environmental costs outweigh the benefits.

The report cites one example, as farmers in Indonesia have expanded the development of oil palm plantations and deforested an estimated six million hectares of land. As a result of deforestation, some of which is for palm oil plantations, Indonesia is now the third-largest global emitter of carbon dioxide, after the U.S. and China.

Deforestation is already the second-largest contributor to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "Deforestation to make way for large-scale mono-cropping obliterates the green credentials of biofuels by actually increasing the amount of emissions rather than reducing them," the report explained.

The economic attraction of biofuels is also leading to conflict between crops grown for food and those grown for fuel. Increasingly, the result is expected to be both greater competition for land and higher food prices, the report concludes.