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Food versus Fuel
| Partially replacing gasoline and diesel with biofuels requires agricultural products that compete with food production for the world’s scarce fertile land resources. The sharp rise in agricultural prices over the past few years has been driven not only by the growing world population and rising incomes in emerging economies, but also by the expansion of biofuels. In this sense, protecting our climate conflicts with combating hunger. | |
To what degree do biofuels indeed mitigate climate change? To what degree do they indeed raise the price of food for the poor? What is the right balance between food and fuel in the allocation of land? How could we avoid the conflict between food and fuel? What is the appropriate role of technology (second generation biofuels), taxes and subsidies, of government regulation in dealing with this problem? | |