World in Transition – Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use

Citation

(2010), "World in Transition – Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 21 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2010.08321dae.003

World in Transition – Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use

World in Transition – Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use

Article Type: Books and resources From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 21, Issue 4

Schubert, Schellnhuber et al. , German Advisory Council on Global ChangeEarthscanLondonDecember 2009393 pp.ISBN 9781844078417£75.00

In view of the major opportunities and risks associated with it, and the complexity of the subject, bioenergy policy has in a short time become a challenging political task for regulators and planners – a task which can only be accomplished through worldwide cooperation and the creation of an international framework. To that end, WBGU presents an integrated vision that will provide policy-makers clear guidance for the deployment of bioenergy. The principle behind the change of direction that is required must in WBGU’s view be the strategic role of bioenergy as a component of the global transformation of energy systems towards sustainability. The guiding vision is inspired by two objectives:

1. 1.

   The use of bioenergy should contribute to mitigating climate change by replacing fossil fuels and thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the world energy system. The fact that bioenergy carriers can be stored and used to provide control energy in power grids can make a strategically important contribution to stabilizing electricity supplies when there is a high proportion of wind and solar energy in the energy systems of industrialized, newly industrializing and developing countries. In the long term, bioenergy in combination with carbon dioxide capture and secure storage can even help to remove some of the emitted CO2 from the atmosphere.

2. 2.

   The use of bioenergy can help to overcome energy poverty. In the first place this involves substituting the traditional forms of bioenergy use in developing countries that are harmful to people’s health. The modernization of traditional bioenergy use can reduce poverty, prevent damage to health and diminish pressures placed on natural ecosystems by human uses. Some 2.5 billion people currently have no access to affordable and safe forms of energy (such as electricity and gas) to meet their basic needs. Modern yet simple and cost-effective forms of bioenergy can play an important part in significantly reducing energy poverty in developing, and newly industrializing countries.

WBGU’s central message is that use should be made of the global sustainable potential of bioenergy, provided that risks to sustainability can be excluded. In particular, the use of bioenergy must not endanger food security or the goals of nature conservation and climate protection.