The equivalent of another 14 million bottles of palm oil and soybean oil a day – mostly from Indonesia and South America – is also burned for fuel, the study said. The prices of vegetable oils are rising sharply due to the war in Ukraine, which is the largest supplier of rapeseed in Europe and the largest source of sunflower oil in the world. However, 58% of rapeseed – and 9% of sunflower oil – consumed in Europe between 2015 and 2019 were burned in cars and trucks, although their effects on the climate may be worse than fossil fuels. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST “Supermarkets have been forced to deal with a portion of vegetable oils and prices are soaring,” said Maik Marahrens of the Transport & Environment campaign, which conducted the survey. “At the same time, we burn thousands of tons of sunflower oil and rapeseed oil in our cars every day. “In a time of scarcity, we must prioritize food over fuel.” Despite acute food insecurity at record highs, about 10% of the world’s cereals are still being converted into biofuels, enough to feed 1.9 billion people a year, according to some estimates. If the land abroad used to grow UK bioethanol was given to food crops, 3.5 million people a year could be fed, according to another study published by the Green Alliance on Monday. This would reduce the impact of global malnutrition due to the war in Ukraine by 25-40%, according to the newspaper. And if the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union halve their collective use of crop-based biofuels, Ukraine’s previous grain exports – which fed about 125 million people – could be completely replaced, the paper concluded. “At a time when Russia’s war is threatening people in less developed countries with hunger, it is unjustifiable to continue to increase the use of biofuels,” said Dustin Benton, the Green Alliance’s director of policy. “Cutting biofuels is the fastest way to tackle global hunger in this crisis.” Dozens of studies have linked biofuel orders to boosting food prices, as fuel crops increase demand for land – and reduce its supply. Biofuels played a “major role” in the 2008 and 2011 food crises, according to Timothy Searchinger, a Princeton University fellow and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. He told the Guardian: “The rapid increase in demand for cereals and vegetable oils for biofuels has made it impossible for farmers to keep up and government orders for even greater growth in the future meant that those with grain stocks demanded very high prices to sell because they expected prices will remain high in the future. “ About 18% of the world’s vegetable oils – almost all suitable for human consumption – are used for biodiesel, which is supposed to reduce the greenhouse gases that heat the planet. However, experts say their life cycle emissions can be even worse than fossil fuels because they displace crop crops on previously uncultivated land – often through deforestation. Global crops are believed to have expanded by more than 100 million hectares by this century – an area about the size of Egypt – with about half of this land coming from natural ecosystems, a super-acceleration of growth compared to previous years. 8,000 years. “The cost of biofuels outweighs the benefits of any reduced oil use,” said Searchinger. “Europe and others have made the mistake of ignoring these costs. They act as if the use of land was free. “The food crisis we are in reminds us that this is not true.” To protect food security, the EU has already complemented the common agricultural policy, allowing crop production to fall into place and derogating from crop rotation rules. Ariel Brunner, Birdlife Europe Policy Officer, said: “There is an astonishing hypocrisy in chasing the last pieces of nature conservation in the name of food security, while it continues to burn huge amounts of food grown on millions of hectares.” A European Commission official said biofuels could boost food security and replace fossil fuels, while EU countries would support Brussels in using mixed biofuels that reduce the amount of land needed for raw materials. “The contribution of biofuels produced from food and feed crops to carbon sequestration is limited, so their use should be limited,” the official added. The issue of biofuels could be the starting point for the G7 summit on Sunday in Schloss Elmau, Germany, where Environment Minister Steffi Lemke has already proposed reducing biofuel production to alleviate food shortages. A German government spokesman said biofuels were not on the official agenda of a food security ministerial conference on Friday to lay the groundwork for Sunday’s summit. But they added that fuel crops were “likely to be an important part of the food security debate”. A spokesman for No. 10 said: “Putin’s actions in Ukraine are causing earthquakes around the world, raising energy and food prices as millions of people are on the brink of starvation. “Only Putin can end this unnecessary and futile war. But next week’s Commonwealth, G7 and NATO meetings will be a crucial opportunity for world leaders to come together to apply their combined weight to make life easier for households around the world. “Nothing is off the table.”
