Subsidies for biofuel 'better spent on saving rainforests'

THE Government should stop funding subsidies for biofuels to tackle climate change and instead use the money to stop the destruction of rainforests and peatland, a think tank said today.
The "misjudged" biofuels targets had led to an increase in food prices and deforestation and should be abandoned, the Policy Exchange report said.The £550 million annual cost in lost revenue from the Government's aim of using biofuels to make up five per of fuel sold at UK garages could be better spent on avoiding deforestation, it added.The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) target would save 2.6 to 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, but investing in preventing the destruction of peatland or rainforests could result in a "50 times greater amount of avoided emission" as the habitats act as a store of carbon which is released into the atmosphere when burned.Ben Caldecott, the report's editor, said: "If developed countries spent the same amount of money on preventing deforestation and the destruction of peatlands as they do on biofuel subsidies, this would halve the total costs of tackling climate change."