“End fossil fuel subsidies” emerges as Rio+20 theme; PANGEA says focus on “best practices” for biofuels

June 19, 2012 |

In Brazil, “end fossil fuel subsidies” has emerged as a theme at the Rio+20 Summit is underway, where a flash mob of protesters, organized by Earth Day, 350.org and youth groups attending the summit protested $1 trillion per year in subsidies that they said posed a significant barrier to the adioption of clean energy.

Also at Rio+20, a “twitterstorm” was organized using #endfossilfuelsubsidies as a hashtag.

Meanwhile,  PANGEA distributed its position paper, “Encouraging sustainable bioenergy to ensure energy access in developing countries”, noting that “The topics of bioenergy and biofuels should be addressed by all the stakeholders in an objective way, avoiding the inclusion of generalized negative assumptions referring to the whole biofuels industry and instead focusing on best practices and specific positive examples of the benefits this source of energy can bring to local communities in sub-Saharan Africa.” PANGEA’s paper can be downloaded here.

Download the PANGEA position paper here.

Category: Policy

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