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The Biofuel Controversy 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Summary About a decade ago, the main OECD countries decided to promote the use of biofuels so as to reduce greenhouse gases, to contribute
to energy self-sufficiency and to create additional demand for agricultural commodities. The introduction of mandatory blending
requirements and lavish subsidies spurred fast adoption of this technology. In the course of 2008, the already existing controversy
about the effectiveness of this strategy culminated as the resulting upward shift in demand contributed to staggering rises
in food prices on world markets. It is uncertain as yet whether this will tone done current ambitions among policy makers
to expand biofuel production. The paper shows that high ratios of energy prices to food prices are needed to make biofuel
production profitable without the mandatory blending and subsidies. Yet, even if food-based biofuels disappeared, the issue
remains that rising high energy prices will promote intensified use worldwide of land for energy crops, requiring huge amounts
of mineral fertilizers and putting nature under additional pressure. In policy terms, this defines three major tasks. The
first is replacing the current excise taxes on energy carriers by a uniform carbon tax, so as to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions
in an efficient manner, the second to prevent price fluctuations on the oil markets from destabilizing food markets, as happened
in recent years. Introduction of upper limits on the use of food for biofuel could prove effective here. The third, much wider,
task is to make the transition to a partly biomass based energy production possible and sustainable, that is establishing
fair distribution of property and user rights over the lands, while safeguarding biodiversity and soil fertility and maintaining
adequate labour standards and living conditions, also during periods that these become non-profitable following a drop in
energy prices.
The authors thank Lia van Wesenbeeck for her comments. 相似文献
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Summary In its Millennium Declaration of September 2000, the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), to be
reached in 2015 through concerted efforts worldwide. According to UN-calculations, the estimated costs in terms of additional
development aid of meeting the MDGs in all countries vary from 121 billion US dollars in 2006 to 189 billion US dollars in
2015. The present communication reviews the figures reported. It appears that while Asia is well on track to achieve the goals,
essentially through efforts of its own, Africa is lagging behind, albeit that according to detailed survey data on weight-for-length
among adults collected in Africa for the US aid agency, rates of undernutrition are about 58 percent of the levels used as
a reference by the UN, which are based on assessment of food production. Yet, child undernutrition comes out higher in these
surveys. Besides mentioning reservations about the adequacy of these MDG-yardsticks, we consider the cost estimates for Africa
as presented in the UN-reports and subsequently assessed in the literature. It appears that these estimates are too low, even
if all MDG-funds were concentrated on this continent, essentially because they are set up as shopping lists that are necessarily
incomplete and, among others, disregard many of the indirect cost of delivering the goods to the target beneficiaries, including
the cost of providing adequate security and avoiding corruption. Nonetheless, recalling how hopeless the situation looked
some 30 years ago for China, India, and Bangladesh, where unprecedented numbers have now escaped extreme poverty during the
past decade and a half, we submit that over a time horizon of about twice the 15 years of the MDG’s and with adequate international
support, realization of the MDG-targets should be possible for Africa too.
An erratum to this article can be found at 相似文献
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Jerrie De Hoogh Michiel A. Keyzer Hans Linnemann Henk D.J. Van Heemst 《Technological Forecasting and Social Change》1977,10(1):27-51
This report describes summarily the set-up and main conclusions of the project “Food for a doubling world population”. It has to be seen as a preview-rather than as a summary-of the final report, as the model is not discussed explicitly in the present paper. The final report on the study-containing a detailed presentation of aims, methods and results—will appear under the title “MOIRA—A Model of International Relations in Agriculture”, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, in the course of 1977. Besides the present authors, R. Brolsma, J. Bruinsma, P. Buringh, G.J. Staring, M. van der Vlis and C.T. de Wit had an active part in the multi-disciplinary project. 相似文献
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Policy Options for China's Bio-ethanol Development and the Implications for Its Agricultural Economy
Huanguang Qiu Jikun Huang Michiel Keyzer Wim van Veen 《中国与世界经济(英文版)》2008,16(6):112-126
The present paper analyzes the potential impacts of bio-ethanol expansion on agricultural production, food prices and farmers' incomes in different regions of China. The results show that increase in demand for feedstock to produce bio-ethanol will lead to large increase in the prices of agricultural products. The increase in prices will trigger a significant rise in the production of feedstock at the cost of lower rice and wheat production. The study also reveals that the impacts of bio-ethanol on farmers" incomes vary largely among regions and farmer groups. Given the expected expansion of bio-ethanol production in the future, and the limited land resources for feedstock production in China, the viability of different crops as feedstock for bio-ethanol requires careful analysis before a large-scale expansion of China's bio-ethanol program. Bio-ethanol production in China should be relying more on the second generation of bio-ethanol technologies (i.e. using celluloses to produce bio-ethanol), and China's government should increase research investment in this field. 相似文献