BUSH ALLIANCE WITH BRAZIL FOR CONTROL OF WORLD BIO-FUEL MARKET

By Leonardo Boff Reprint | | Print |

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 3 2007 (IPS) - Anyone who thinks that President Bush\’s current tour of Latin America, and especially to Brazil, was inspired by the urgent warnings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is dead wrong, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian liberation theologian and member of the International Committee of the Earth Charter. In this article, Boff writes that there are two motivations driving Bush: one is geopolitics, the other is energy, specifically the extraordinary abundance of biomass in Latin America and the Amazon. The US and Brazil see themselves as the major players in this biofuel market. But there is a major unanswered question that probably does not trouble these two presidents: Isn\’t there an urgent need to change the current model of civilisation? The solution adopted by Bush and Lula only dulls the teeth of the wolf but leaves its ferocity intact.

There are two motivations driving Bush: one is geopolitics, the other is energy, specifically the extraordinary abundance of biomass in Latin America and the Amazon.

In his first term Bush did not give the region any geopolitical importance. However, in recent years the people of the region have elected leftist and centre-left governments with powerful social visions. Social issues and development have taken centre stage, which has aroused old and long-dormant dreams about Latin America’s role on the world stage. The Bolivarian yearning for the Patria Grande (Larger Homeland) and Jose Marti’s Our America, with a strong anti-imperialist and anti-American accent have returned to captivate the political imagination of many people there. The charismatic force of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is prominent in this continental dream.

In principle, the US government is not opposed to Latin American integration. However, it doesn’t want any disturbance of the bilateral relations it has built in the region over the past decades. Eventually Bush may accept regional integration as long as it is in the fashion of Lula and not Chavez, without anti-American feelings and not against the interests of the US.

The other major theme is finding alternatives to oil, the supply of which is widely thought to run out or sharply decline around 2030-2040. The question is what will replace oil. In this area, Brazil is without a doubt a world leader. The majority of Brazil’s energy is clean, much of it hydro-electric, with 29 percent derived from biomass from a dozen plants, especially in the Amazon, the pre-Amazon, and the northeast of the country. Globally biomass accounts for only 11 percent of energy production.

But Brazil’s great experiment has been with ethanol from sugar cane. In 1975, after the first major oil shock, Brazil initiated the so-called Proalcohol Programme using its own technology to produce an alternative to gasoline. There were periods in which cane ethanol powered 80 percent of automobile use in Brazil. When the price of oil dropped, the project was put on the back burner, but with the price spike in recent years it has come back strong. Today Brazil produces 16 billion litres per year of cane ethanol, almost all of it used domestically. The flex fuel car, which runs on gasoline or ethanol, is trademarked by Brazil. In ten years another 12 billion litres of fuel will be needed to satisfy the expansion of the flex fuel fleet, the technology for which it has exported to other countries, including Japan.

Brazil has about 90 million hectares of arable land plus 200 million for grazing. Only 62 million hectares are used for agriculture, of which six million are dedicated to sugar cane, half to make sugar, half to make ethanol. A few more million hectares could be dedicated to growing cane for ethanol without razing forests or reducing food production. Production for 2017 is projected to be 28.4 billion litres, plus 10.3 billion litres for export only.

Since 2001 the US has built a number of bio-refineries, which it hopes to use to lower oil consumption by 30 percent by the year 2030. These plants use corn or wheat to produce ethanol, but productivity per hectare is only half of that for sugar cane ethanol. The subsidised cost is 30 cents per litre, compared with 22 cents in Brazil, which explains the 14-cent tax per litre imposed on imported Brazilian ethanol to protect US producers.

Given this reality, Bush has approached Lula seeking a bilateral agreement. There is no signed treaty, just a memorandum signed on March 9 outlining reciprocal transfers of technology, establishment of a common technical standard for ethanol, and the building of biofuel plants in other countries in Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean.

On March 2, 2007, the UN launched the International Biofuel Forum as the first step towards the organisation of the international ethanol market, the drafting of regulations and common technical standards with an interest towards making it a raw material on the global level. The forum included Brazil and the US –which produce 70 percent of the world’s ethanol– and China, India, and the European Union.

Bush and Lula have recognised the potential of this clean energy source, which will be decisive in the near future. The US and Brazil see themselves as the major players in this biofuel market.

Meanwhile, there is a major unanswered question that probably does not trouble these two presidents: Isn’t there an urgent need to change the current model of civilisation? The solution adopted by Bush and Lula only dulls the teeth of the wolf but leaves its ferocity intact.

On March 4, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso published an article in which he stated,”The greatest threat to humanity is the greenhouse effect. But the broader problem is this: if the practices of the West spread to the rest of the world, will it still be possible for man and nature –and for mankind– to peacefully co-exist?”

Accordingly, what is desperately needed now is a true revolution in the hearts and minds of people; without it we cannot avoid the devastating consequences of the climate change now underway.

As French president Chirac announced, the heads of state will have to discuss all of these matters in order to bring about the profound changes that are necessary. This time there will be no Noah’s ark to save some and leave the rest to drown. Either we save all of ourselves, or we will all perish. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)