Conference on plant fuels
Launch of the study "The flow of palm oil Colombia-Belgium/Europe"
The 2003 European regulation on agro-fuels assigning a target of 5.75% for agro-fuels in the total share of fuels by 2010 is currently presented by the European Commission as a miracle which will allow the EU to achieve the Kyoto goals.
Nevertheless, far from being the announced miracle, agro-fuels are currently devastating some countries of the South which - due to iniquitous bilateral agreements - have become producers of agro-fuels for the USA and the EU to the detriment of their own food crops.
Scientists have already sent a strong alarm message: agro-fuels - far from solving the problem of climate change - would be worsening it. The deforestation of vast zones in Southeast Asia or Latin America for agro-fuel crops for export does not only involve an increasing loss of biodiversity. Additionally, the methods employed (peat draining; fires...) seem to be at the origin of a CO2 outburst that is more important than the use of oil by the voracious cars of the industrialized countries!
AGENDA
Wednesday 9 May 2007, 9:30 - 1:00
European Parliament, Brussels, Rue Wiertz
Room PHS 1 C 47
Welcome and opening speech
Alain Lipietz, Member of the European Parliament
Chair: Patrick Piro, weekly magazine Politis
The case of Colombia - Presentation of the study of the Belgian Coordination for Colombia
Fidel Mingorance, Luxembourg, author of the study
A paramilitary agro-industrial project
Presentation from the angle of the affected communities
Padre Henri Ramírez, cmf, Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz Colombia, Paris
The Indonesian case - the bitter taste of palm oil
Ginting Longgena, Friends of the Earth, Amsterdam
Right to land - Right to a life in dignity
Graciela Jolidone, Plantations of palm trees and the ILO convention 169
Equality, Migrant Workers and Indigenous and Tribal peoples Team; International Labour Standards Department, ILO Geneva (to be confirmed)
Would a label "Not produced on Paramilitary land" be possible?
Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory, Amsterdam
Roundtable "The traps of the agro-fuels"
Alain Lipietz and other speakers
----------------------------Simultaneous translation in French - Spanish - English -----------------------
Contacts and registration: alipietz@europarl.eu.int and/or gkuppers@europarl.eu.int
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