In Africa grow crops for energy purposes. Felisa, the Belgian start-up, is the first to invest in Africa in the production of biodiesel from palma oil. But all this involves also other Western investors and it increasingly takes on the form of a new colonization. How to take advantage of the promising growth of agro-energy while protecting the interests of local communities?
A carbon credit system, the one designed by the European community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but which would actually even raise them. The scheme was so controversial that the European Union banned it in 2013. However, the prohibition has not been taken into account by some large multinationals, as long as it does not actually come into force
An investigation to find out the price of EU green policies in favor of low-grade CO₂ blends. Imagine Switzerland entirely covered with plantations to fuel cars and power plants: it is the correspondent of the land today exploited by Westerners in Africa to produce biofuels. Are we sure that this ambitious sustainable energy project is equally sustainable for African rural communities?
Against climate warming and oil prices, the Kyoto Protocol bets on biofuels. And if the announced green revolution assumed the size of a new colonization? The Italian company Tozzi Renewable Energy (TRE Spa) is positioned on the African chess board, pending a new climate change agreement that could multiply cash flows to the green gold sector
What is the real weight of the biofuel revolution? Kenya and Ethiopia have sold 700,000 hectares of land to foreign investors: fuel fuels represent a development opportunity or a new form of colonialism? Running crops for fuel production led to a sharp rise in cereal prices during the food crisis in 2008, triggering a bias between NGOs and those waving on clean energy
Liquid fuel from plants is considered by some as a possible ecological substitute for fossil fuel. And this is clear to the countries of the western world, and in particular to England. These are crops that are subject to controversy, as they risk replacing foodstuffs by exorbitantly increasing the price of food and hunger. Not to mention the problem of expropriation of land
Bioshape, a green energy company based in Neer, Netherlands, is currently involved in bankruptcy proceedings. Among Bioshape’s projects, it is to hire thousands of local laborers and export seeds from Tanzania to the Netherlands, where they would be worked for the production of electricity, heat and biofuels. A big wound to the green polo of the world by the hand of a project that was intended to produce clean energy.
In Africa grow crops for energy purposes. Felisa, the Belgian start-up, is the first to invest in Africa in the production of biodiesel from palma oil. But all this involves also other Western investors and it increasingly takes on the form of a new colonization. How to take advantage of the promising growth of agro-energy while protecting the interests of local communities?
