Chapter 3 - Political Orientations, State Regulation and Biofuels in the Context of the Food–Energy–Climate Change Trilemma

Abstract

This chapter will explore the importance of different political orientations in developing regulatory frameworks for biofuels in the context of competing or complementary uses for land resources, food and energy demand, and their significance for climate change mitigation. The argument is made that different countries, with different environmental resource endowments, face very different food–energy–climate change trilemmas, as a consequence of which, they respond in contrasting ways to tensions around land use, food and energy security. To substantiate this argument, the chapter compares the development of regulatory policies to biofuels in Germany, India, China and Brazil, and the “political instituting” of biofuel markets in those countries. Major geopolitical shifts in relation to oil-price volatility, food price spikes and sustainability crises have recently resulted in a widespread negative regulatory turn to biofuel development, but with contrasting perspectives in the different cases.