Studies Say Clearing Land for Biofuels Will Aid Warming

But an array of senior scientists who work on climate change, including Missouri Botanical Society President Peter H. Raven and William H. Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, sent a letter to Bush and congressional leaders yesterday urging them to reconsider their energy policies in light of the new studies.

"While politicians in the U.S. and Europe have tried to craft policies dictating that new biofuels will not come at the expense of clearing land, the papers show that sometimes land conversion is often an indirect result of this expansion," the 10 scientists wrote. "There is an urgent need for policy that ensures biofuels are not produced on productive forest, grassland or cropland."

Alex Farrell, a professor with Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group who concluded in 2006 that biofuels produce a net environmental benefit, said the paper by Searchinger and his colleagues changed his mind.

"The qualitative result that biofuel produced on fertile land has higher greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels is almost certainly true, even if it's only by a certain amount," Farrell said in a telephone interview. "But we can make better biofuels. The right thing to do is to give the biofuel industry the incentives and support to move to a more sustainable production method."

One of the biggest tests will come when the Environmental Protection Agency issues its analysis of the climate impact of biofuels, which according to the energy bill must include "direct emissions and significant indirect emissions such as significant emissions from land use changes."

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), a member of the House Energy Committee, said policymakers would have to rely on scientists to help them sort out such questions.

"Our challenge really is to find out a way to quantify these things, so when you adopt a policy, you factor in these land use issues," Inslee said, adding that the new findings point out that "we ought to be open to new science, but we also have to continue with upward leaps in biofuels."