The New Biomassters - Convention on Biological Diversity

8. Biomass is good for the global economy, aiding
economic development in the South and creating
“green jobs” in the North.
<strong>The</strong> Claim: As “clean energy” industries take root
worldwide, they will deliver hi-tech, skilled jobs that are also
environmentally sound. <strong>New</strong> manufacturing jobs using biobased
processes qualify as ‘green jobs,’ providing
employment opportunities while reforming polluting
industries. Biomass manufacturing also offers a potential
economic boost for rural and Southern economies, which
can earmark land for growing profitable biomass crops and
plantations and can build biomanufacturing facilities close
to large sources of cellulose and other biomass. Bioenergy
may also earn extra money for development under the Kyoto
Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
<strong>The</strong> Reality: Biomass technologies are largely subject to
patents and other proprietary claims, and attempts by countries
to develop bio-based manufacturing industries will be subject
to royalties and/or licensing fees. Industrial agriculture and
plantations are already controlled by a handful of transnational
companies. Moreover, there is no reason to presume that
biorefineries and monoculture plantations of energy crops are
in any way ‘green’ or safe for workers. In addition to the
harmful effects to humans and the environment of chemical
inputs and monoculture production techniques, synthetic
organisms may also prove both environmentally damaging and
risky for workers’ health. Brazil provides a real-world
cautionary tale: the conditions of those who cut sugarcane for
bioenergy (currently ethanol) involve exposure to high levels of
agrochemicals and dangerous air pollution. Far from helping
marginal communities, new bioenergy plantations, accredited
under the CDM or other mechanisms, may directly encroach
upon the lands of peasants and small producers, robbing them
of control over food production, water and the health of the
ecosystems in which they live.
9. A Biomass economy reduces the political
instability/wars/terrorism associated with
petrodollars.
<strong>The</strong> Claim: Wars over oil, natural gas and other fossil
resources have been a dominant feature of the late twentieth
and early twenty-first century. Inflated profits from
petroleum extraction in the Middle East and elsewhere have
indirectly bolstered extremist groups and fuelled geopolitical
tensions. Oil companies have been dismissive of
human rights and territorial claims of indigenous and
traditional communities in their race to control the
remaining pockets of oil and gas. Unlike fossil resources,
biomass is more evenly distributed across the planet and
would allow industrial economies to achieve energy
independence, cutting off the flow of cash to unstable
regions of the globe.
<strong>The</strong> Reality: Removing fossil hydrocarbons from the global
energy mix (even if it were possible or likely) would not
magically dissolve geopolitical tensions. Like fossil resources,
biomass is also unevenly distributed around the globe, and
there is already a scramble to secure and control the land,
water and strategic minerals, as well as the intellectual
property, that will enable the new biomass economy. Fights
over scarce freshwater resources and over oceans and deserts
may become more common, particularly as algal biomass
technologies mature. Agribusiness, forestry companies and the
sugar industry are no more respectful of human rights and
sovereignty claims than Big Oil has been: for communities
fighting cellulose plantations, land grabbing, water theft, or
illegal logging, the wars over biomass have already begun.
<strong>The</strong> <strong>New</strong> <strong>Biomassters</strong> 33