Climate Ethics and Carbon in Bioenergy Crops: Bioenergy Vs. Land for Food, Biodiversity and Water.

The debate over food vs. bioenergy production, and the environmental impacts caused by the production of both ecosystem services, need to be considered within a framework of the uses and interdependencies among land, biodiversity, water, and energy resources. Land-use for bioenergy already elicited warning signals, especially in the developing world. Current and future food and feed requirements strongly influence bioenergy potentials. Only an integrated approach would optimize food and bioenergy supplies; therefore, rigorous accounting rules are needed to measure bioenergy impact on the efficiency of land use, global food system, biodiversity, and water. Nevertheless, climate-smart and integrated food-bioenergy agro-ecosystems can contribute to meeting projected (~70%) increase in food production by 2050, while providing sustainable bioenergy and protecting the environment. Biodiversity consequences of large-scale biofuel production may result in habitat loss, increased and enhanced dispersion of invasive species, and pollution resulting from fertilizer and herbicide use. Moreover, extinction of genetically distinct populations, reduced effective population sizes, and habitat uniformity due to large-scale deployment of bioenergy crop monocultures are likely to have negative effects on future biodiversity. Water consumption in bioenergy production has different social and ecological consequences depending upon the state of the resource base from which the water is drawn. Water availability may prove to be the most limiting factor for the establishment and growth of bioenergy crops and for biofuel production. Food and bioenergy, two interlocked provisioning ecosystem services, if addressed simultaneously and in relation to the environment on which they depend, may put an end to the technical debate around whether “peaceful co-existence or permanent strife will emerge between these two sectors.” However, deeper ethical engagement in the debate around “why more and more people are likely to go hungry while resource depletion and climate change continue to threaten a growing population” may continue for the foreseeable future.