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MERCOSUR Agrees to Cooperate on Biofuels
By Keith R | February 14, 2007
Topics: Biofuels, Energy & the Environment, Environmental Protection, Sustainable Transport | No Comments »
Another one from the backlog queue. First tapped out some notes on this back in December! Only now remembered to dig it out (can I somehow blame it on the holidays?), because of the piece I just posted about the IDB and ethanol. Sorry for the delay.
In mid-December the top policymaking body of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR/MERCOSUL), the Common Market Council (Consejo del Mercado Común – CMC), approved and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to create a special task force on biofuels that will include its newest member (once ratification is completed), Venezuela.
The name “task force” may sound innocuous, but the mandate given the new group is ambitious and potentially far-reaching. The move has all sorts of potential implications, geopolitical, economic, strategic and environmental. For example, in the case of Brazil, it is part of the complex international mosaic it is constructing to support its ambitions to be a biofuels superpower (more on that in a future blog). For Venezuela, it undoubtedly is part of President Chavez’s efforts to closely tie in Venezuela’s southern neighbors to his efforts to lead the continent and provide an economic and geopolitical counterweight to the US interests. To Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, it is a way to hitch a ride on the swift rise of Brazil in the global biofuels market, to pull in more investment and develop greater external market clout than each country would have had individually.
The Biofuels Task Force is charged by the CMC with proposing measures for MERCOSUR approval and implementation to:
- stimulate production and consumption of biofuels, with a view to establishing a global biofuels market. In particular, MERCOSUR should promote the sale of ethanol in the world’s principal commodity markets.
- promote compatible regulatory frameworks for the production, use, distribution and sale of biofuels;
- stimulate the construction of integrated biofuels production chains within MERCOSUR;
- stimulate technical cooperation between entities and enterprises in the member states, including downstream operational aspects (transport, storage, blending and distribution) of ethanol and biodiesel;
- stimulate joint research programs on the production and use of biofuels, building on existing bilateral and regional programs, projects, mechanisms and instruments;
- facilitate the interchange of information regarding technical and technological aspects regarding the production and use of biofuels, particularly ethanol and biodiesel, including those involving the modifications necessary to adapt motor vehicles to biofuels use (can anyone here say, Brazil’s “flex fuel” tech?) and the use of different fossil fuel/biofuel blends;
- promote capacity-building in all aspects of sustainable production of biofuels, including environmental impact assessment (EIA), land use, production plant configuration, waste uses, elimination and recycling of associated wastes, distribution and logistical infrastructure, etc.
The Task Force was given six months to present the CMC with its preliminary conclusions, and to wrap up its work and present final proposals by the end of 2007.
— Keith R
Tags: Argentina, biocombustibles, biocombustiveis, biodiesel, Biofuels, blending, Brasil, Brazil, CMC, distribution, EIA, etanol, ethanol, flex-fuel, land use, logistical infrastructure, MERCOSUL, MERCOSUR, motor vehicles, Paraguay, reciclagem, reciclaje, recycling, storage, sustainable production, transport, Uruguay, vehículos, Venezuela, waste