The head of the UN Environment Program said on Wednesday
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and others are justified in raising concern about the
potential for ethanol production to threaten food supplies for the poor. But
UNEP director Achim Steiner said the jury is still out on whether risks
outweigh the benefits when using food crops to produce ethanol as an
alternative fuel.
Castro, who has taken to writing articles since he was
sidelined from power last year by intestinal surgery, has attacked US plans to
increase biofuels output using crops such as corn, saying this will increase
food prices and global hunger. "What President Castro points to is
something the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has also raised recently:
That there is significant potential and risk for competition between food
production and production for a global biofuels market," Steiner told
Reuters during a environmental meeting in Havana. "We have to be aware
that there are risks, and for some countries those risks may not be worth
taking," he said.
Steiner said it is too early to do a cost-benefit analysis
on the use of ethanol, which environmentalists say will help slow global
warming. While current technology simply turns crops, such as sugar or corn,
into ethanol, new biofuels products on the horizon use enzymes to turn crop
residue or agricultural waste into fuel, he said.
The UNEP is studying the efficiency of biofuels while
focusing on the development of international standards that would minimize
social and environmental risks. But Steiner added: "As long as the world
is not able to agree on the norms and standards that should guide the
development of a global biofuels market, the risks are going to be much
higher."
(By Anthony Boadle, Planet Ark, 05/07/2007)