Biochar Lobby
Who is promoting biochar?
Industrial-scale production of biochar is being promoted as a carbon-negative technology by energy and agrofuels companies, including Eprida, Dynamotive, Best Energies, Heartland Bioenergy, Shell, Embrapa, JP Morgan Chase, Biochar Engineering, the executive director of the Indonesian palm oil association (GAPKI) and the Bolivian agribusiness company Desarollos Agricolas, among others.[1]
Industry groups and other bodies are lobbying for inclusion of biochar in government initiatives to combat climate change. The International Biochar Initiative was present at the 2008 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate conference in Poznan. There the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the government of Micronesia succeeded in getting biochar included in the draft agenda for the Copenhagen climate negotiations in 2009 (COP15). UNCCD is calling for the inclusion of biochar in the “dialogue for the post 2012 climate regime”, alongside “afforestation and reforestation”.[2]
Biochar Europe, which includes Shell, JP Morgan, a carbon offsetting company, and the Centre for Rural Innovations (organisers of the First International Conference on Sharing Innovative Agribusiness Solutions), is lobbying for the inclusion of biochar into the EU Emission Trading Scheme, and also for establishment of a Biochar Technology Platform.[3]
In the US, the biochar lobby is well connected with the Obama administration. The new secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, is a key supporter of biochar. One of the main US groups behind biochar is Renew the Earth, which is well connected. In Australia, the opposition Liberal Party supports large-scale biochar use as a soil amendment. In New Zealand the Forestry Ministry has voiced support.[4] In Brazil, Embrapa (the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) is represented in the International Biochar Initiative, a lobby group “supporting researchers, commercial entities, policy makers, development agents, farmers and gardeners, and others committed to supporting sustainable biochar production and utilization systems.”[5] Biochar lobby forums have been set up in Canada and Mongolia.[6]
Biochar and agrofuels
Many objections to the industrial production of biochar center on the diversion of land from small-scale farming and food production to industrial agriculture and large-scale plantations of non-food crops. This argument also applies to the production of agrofuels. Indeed, biochar and agrofuels are being promoted by the same multinational companies. This is no coincidence, as charcoal is a byproduct from a type of bioenergy production which can also be used to make second-generation agrofuels, i.e. liquid agrofuels from wood, straw, sugarcane residues, palm kernel residues and other types of solid biomass.[7]
Resources
- See main page: Biochar
- Biochar: Effects on Soil and Crops
Notes
- ↑ Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker, “Biochar for Climate Change Mitigation: Fact or Fiction?”, Biofuelwatch, February 2009, p. 2
- ↑ Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker, “Biochar for Climate Change Mitigation: Fact or Fiction?”, Biofuelwatch, February 2009, p. 2
- ↑ Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker, “Biochar for Climate Change Mitigation: Fact or Fiction?”, Biofuelwatch, February 2009, p. 2
- ↑ Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker, “Biochar for Climate Change Mitigation: Fact or Fiction?”, Biofuelwatch, February 2009, p. 2
- ↑ Home page, International Biochar Initiative website, accessed June 9 2009.
- ↑ Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker, “Biochar for Climate Change Mitigation: Fact or Fiction?”, Biofuelwatch, February 2009, p. 2
- ↑ “'Biochar', a new big threat to people, land, and ecosystems,” open letter, 8 April 2009
