Modeling the global trade and environmental impacts of biofuel policies | Land Portal

Información del recurso

Date of publication: 
Enero 2010
ISBN / Resource ID: 
3849
Pages: 
46 pages
Copyright details: 
IFPRI adheres to the basic tenets of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, articulated in 2002 (subject to any applicable third-party rights and or confidentiality obigations). All applicable data are subject to IFPRI’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines. Copyright © 2013 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). All rights reserved.

There is rising skepticism about the potential positive environmental impacts of first generation biofuels. Growing biofuel crops could induce diversion of other crops dedicated to food and feed needs. The relocation of production could increase deforestation and bring significant new volumes of carbon into the atmosphere. In this paper, we develop a methodology for assessing the indirect land use change effects related to biofuel policies in a computable general equilibrium framework. We rely on the trade policy model MIRAGE and on the GTAP 7 database, both of which have been modified and improved to explicitly capture the role of different types of biofuel feedstock crops, energy demand and substitution, and carbon emissions. Land use changes are represented at the level of agroecological zones in a dynamic framework using land substitution with nesting of constant elasticity of transformation functions and a land supply module that takes into account the effects of economic land expansion. In this integrated global approach, we capture the environmental cost of different land conversions due to biofuels in the carbon budget, taking into account both direct and indirect carbon dioxide emissions related to land use change. We apply this methodology to look at the impacts of biofuel (ethanol) policies for transportation in the United States and in the European Union with and without ethanol trade liberalization. We find that emissions released because of ethanol programs significantly worsen the total carbon balance of biofuel policies. Ethanol trade liberalization benefits are ambiguous and depend highly on the parameters governing land use change, particularly in Brazil. We conclude by pointing out the critical aspects that have to be refined in order to improve our understanding of the environmental implications of biofuel development.

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About IFPRI


The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 500 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of theCGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.


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About IFPRI


The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 500 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of theCGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.


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