UN official lobbied for private biofuel firms during India visit

NEW DELHI: The United Nations’ top climate official exceeded her brief by a mile pushing the interests of private bio-fuel companies backed by the international air transport association during a visit to India earlier this year. The plea was rejected out of hand by environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

Executive secretary Christiana Figueres is mandated by the UN Secretary General to steer tough climate negotiations and help build consensus among 195 countries that are members of the climate convention but she explored the possibilities of bio-fuel plantations in her talks with the government.

Figueres brought up an impending visit of the IATA president with Ramesh. She informed the environment minister that the IATA chief’s visit was intended to explore business possibilities of jatropha plantations for bio-fuels.

The ministry recorded her advocacy on behalf of the global bio-fuel industry in minutes accessed by TOI. She noted that IATA promotes certified bio-fuels, which can be blended with diesel.

She told Ramesh that some of the leading companies in the field were looking for adequate land for planting jatropha. This she suggested was to produce low emission climate friendly fuel.

But Ramesh outrightly rejected the suggestion and informed Figueres that jatropha would not be allowed to compete with foods in India. Ramesh was stating the well settled government policy on not pushing bio-fuels, wary about a controversy over "diversion” of land and crop for bio-fuels.

He told Figueres that India did not have access to unlimited land and could not follow a model similar to one followed by Brazil. While Brazil, pushed by its own strategic interests and resources at its disposal, has backed corn-based bio-fuels, India stopped shy of promoting jatropha.

In years when global food prices – particularly after the 2009 "drought” – rocketed, India’s enthusiasm for the green fuel dimmed. India was wary that it would impact food production. Some scientific studies also showed that the net impact of first generation bio-fuels on the environment were negative even though they helped reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s secretariat refused to comment on the issue stating, "In principal, we cannot respond to information from unauthorized, unidentified sources.”

Figueres was selected for the post by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in April 2010 in a competition where Indian government had also put up its candidate, the then environment secretary Vijai Sharma.