Gore highlights potential dangers of biofuel drive

Former US Vice President Al Gore warned that the drive to produce alternative fuels to combat global warming must not create new forms of environmental damage.

Speaking in Argentina yesterday, Gore, whose global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award this year, said: “Every potential solution much be handled carefully and the danger with biofuels is that extremely valuable forests will be destroyed unnecessarily.

“Another danger is that, if it is not pursued carefully, it will drive food prices up.”

Gore was talking to a private gathering of biofuel industry players inside a Buenos Aires hotel.

US President George Bush wants to slash petrol consumption by 20% by 2017, a move requiring 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels to replace fossil fuels.

South American sceptics worry that diverting farmland for biofuels made from corn, sugarcane, palm oil and other agricultural products will harm the environment and worsen already troublesome inflation in the developing world.

As Gore spoke, demonstrators on bicycles and wearing surgical masks chanted slogans outside against multinational agribusinesses, saying the biofuel boom will cause deforestation.