EU's Role in Brazilian Rainforest Destruction
Europe's carbon footprint per unit of soy is larger than China's, due to the imports coming largely from newly deforested plantations in the northern parts of Cerrado, Brazil. This revelation, exposed by a German-Spanish-Swedish research team, has sparked a debate about the EU's biofuels strategy.
The study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, found that greenhouse gas emissions caused through deforestation accounted for 44% of Brazil's total carbon emissions in 2018. The transportation of soy exports makes up a staggering 60% of the total carbon emissions of the soy trade, a significant contributor to these emissions.
The Cerrado region in Brazil, which has seen some of the highest deforestation rates in the country and is widely referred to as Brazil's "last agricultural frontier," was the focus of the research. Last year, Brazil faced devastating forest fires in the Amazon, which significantly impacted the world's vital oxygen lungs.
The EU-Mercosur trade deal concluded last year is likely to increase soy imports from Brazil to the EU even further since it cuts or even eliminates duties on exports of soy. China was the biggest importer of Brazilian soy, accounting for 51% of carbon emissions, while the European Union was closely behind with 30%.
Between 2010 and 2015, carbon emissions from Brazilian soy exports were estimated at 223 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Most of Brazil's soy exports to the European Union are not for personal consumption but for feeding livestock and for biofuels production.
Within the European Union, Germany is notably the largest importer of soy from Brazil, with about 2.6 million tons imported in 2021. However, the exact carbon emissions due to these imports are not specified in the sources provided. Deforestation for soy production is a major environmental and climate problem.
The EU's goal is to reach 14% of biofuels in its transportation sector by 2030 (compared to 8.1% in 2018), a goal that can only be reached through imports. Biofuels can have twice the carbon footprint of fossil fuels, raising concerns that the EU's biofuels strategy, aimed at decreasing carbon emissions, may inadvertently contribute to increased carbon emissions through increased soy imports from Brazil.
The debate over the EU's biofuels strategy must now focus on Europe's own role in the international soy trade and its interconnection with Brazil's agribusiness. The governments of the European Union are responsible for a significant portion of Brazil's deforestation rate due to their import of large quantities of soy.
The European Union has undergone an impressive growth in biofuels, producing 649.8 petajoules in 2019, an increase of 620.6 petajoules since the turn of the century. The findings of the German-Spanish-Swedish research team that exposed the true carbon footprint of European soy imports from Brazil are a good point to start the debate over the EU's biofuels strategy.
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