How Brazil convinced the EU on biofuels - Lula's speech

The landmark International Conference on Biofuels has acknowledged some of Biopact's main thoughts: that biofuels offer unique opportunities for development and poverty alleviation in the South given the developing world's comparative advantages, that the EU must partner with poor countries to ensure that production occurs in as sustainable and socially equitable a way as possible, and that an international market for biofuel trade must be created on the basis of clearly defined social and environmental sustainability criteria.


The atmosphere at the conference was in tune with President Lula's enthusiasm on promoting green fuels in the South. For Brazil, the EU's openness towards the developing world and to biofuel trade comes as a consecration of years of efforts to get the message across.

On July 5, President Lula addressed the Conference's 300 invited politicians, policy makers, scientists, business people and NGOs from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The day before, he signed the first-ever Strategic Partnership between the EU and Brazil, at a summit hosted by Portugal, which took over the rotating presidency of the EU from Germany - a partnership in which biofuels and bioenergy play a key role too. In his speech to the Biofuels Conference, the president announced that Rio de Janeiro will host a major biofuels conference next year, to make the vision of a global biofuels revolution more tangible. Rio was chosen, symbolically, as it is here that the concept of 'sustainable development' was crafted at the landmark Earth Summit in 1992.

Fresh on the heels of the EU-Brazil summit and the Conference, Lula and his Foreign Minister Celso Amorim went to the European Parliament. There they will hold talks with EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering and leaders of the main political groups. Prior to the visit the EP's press team had an exclusive interview with the President in which he reiterated his views on world trade talks, biofuels and poverty. A statement by Pöttering on the meeting with Lula can be found here.

Brazil's presence in Brussels has resulted in the first markers for a 'biopact' of sorts. Now the real work begins of analysing, strategizing and implementing concrete projects, trade rules, and policy frameworks in such a way that biofuels indeed contribute to, in Lula's word's, a more peaceful, inclusive, just and prosperous world for all [entry ends here].
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: developing world :: European Union :: Brazil ::