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	Biofuel production expansion threatens food supplies and forests by Dr Patrick Schroder, Bhargabi Bharadwaj Chatham House, Climate Action Network   Sep. 2026   The problem with biofuels as a response to the Gulf energy supply shock - How they threaten food supplies, forests and biodiversity   Biofuel production is set to expand rapidly over the next four years, as the search for alternatives to Gulf oil supplies gains momentum amid the US–Iran war.   Our analysis indicates that an extra 36 million hectares of land – an area the size of Germany – could come under pressure globally as governments expand fuel-blending mandates. Additional production on this scale risks intensifying competition for land and food crops, contributing to food insecurity and incentivizing deforestation.   Policymakers must therefore treat biofuels as a targeted transitional measure to help bridge the current oil crisis, rather than a permanent solution to the problem of energy security.   Our policy recommendations include stronger protections against deforestation, clearer land-use limits, enhanced criteria for feedstock sustainability, and the promotion of agroforestry and integrated approaches to land use.   Key Points   The ongoing conflict between the US and Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping have caused a global energy ‘shock’, with Asian economies particularly exposed to higher fuel prices and supply insecurity as a result.   Biofuels are being promoted as a swift and easy way to increase domestic energy security in response to this shock. Major economies including Brazil, India, Indonesia and the US are rapidly advancing new policies to increase the share of biofuels in transport fuels. Global production of biofuels is now expected to be 68 per cent higher in 2030 than in 2025.   However, production on this scale risks intensifying competition for land and agricultural outputs, contributing to food insecurity and threatening biodiversity.   Our analysis shows that the changes to biofuel mandates announced by various governments since the beginning of the Gulf energy crisis could require around 36 million hectares of additional land to be used for biofuel production globally – an area the size of Germany. This pressure will likely lead to further deforestation in ecologically sensitive regions of the world.   Biofuels must therefore be treated by policymakers as a targeted transitional measure to help bridge the current crisis, rather than a permanent solution to the problem of energy security.   An accelerated and largely uncoordinated policy push for biofuels – combined with reduced fertilizer availability due to conflict and El Nino-related impacts on agriculture – would likely rely heavily on food crops such as palm oil, soy, maize or rice as feedstocks.   Growing biofuel demand could push up the prices of key crops and products like corn and vegetable oils, worsening food security risks in 2026 and beyond.   Higher shares of biofuel can help reduce exposure to oil price shocks and import dependency (e.g. for existing vehicle fleets and hard-to-electrify sectors such as heavy goods transport). However, if biofuel expansion is not managed carefully, it will increase long-term pressure on land.   Pressures on forests and ecosystems like those described above will be difficult – perhaps even impossible – to reverse.   To reduce negative impacts on land, forests and food supplies, policymakers must avoid measures that stimulate demand for biofuels unless robust safeguards are in place.   National biofuel mandates and bioeconomy strategies need to be designed to include stronger deforestation protections, clearer land-use limits and improved feedstock sustainability criteria.   The latter should prioritize waste- and residue-based fuels, advanced second-generation biofuels and low-impact feedstocks (such as those produced sustainably on degraded land).   The role of biofuels in the fuel mix should be reassessed once immediate pressures on energy security ease and rolled back if environmental impacts become too severe, especially given that higher biofuel mandates often depend on government subsidies or other policy measures that may impose unnecessary costs relative to their benefits.   Alternatives are likely to be more cost-effective and yield better long-term results. In many transport sectors, especially passenger transport, energy efficiency measures and demand reduction, decarbonization of electricity generation and electrification offer long-term energy security with less risk of capital expenditure becoming ‘stranded’.   Meanwhile, in terms of land use, agroforestry and integrated approaches can increase biomass and land productivity while protecting biodiversity and avoiding large-scale monoculture expansion.   http://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/09/problem-biofuels-response-gulf-energy-supply-shock http://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/09/problem-biofuels-response-gulf-energy-supply-shock/meeting-need-energy-security-while   22 Sep. 2026   Climate Action Network International today warned that the COP31 “35-by-35” electrification target will fail to deliver climate progress unless it is powered by sustainable renewable energy – not nuclear power, oil, gas or coal – and implemented as a just, equitable and people-centred transition.   The warning follows the publication today of the International Energy Agency’s new special report, Electrification. Developed at the request of Turkiye and Australia through the strategic partnership between the COP31 Presidency and the agency, the report envisages a scenario in which nuclear power could make a “strong comeback” in its pathway aligned with net zero emissions by 2050. Under that pathway, annual nuclear capacity additions could rise from around 3 GW today to more than 40 GW by 2035.   35 by 35: What kind of power – and for whom?   During New York Climate Week, Turkiye launched the 35-by-35 pledge as part of the COP31 Action Agenda. CAN International said that reaching the numbers on paper would not constitute climate progress: governments have to consider how electricity is generated, what it is used for, who gains access to it, and who owns and controls the systems that deliver it.   The pledge says that the goal should be supported by “diverse and sustainable energy sources”, without defining those sources. The IEA’s High Electrification Scenario likewise does not determine how the additional electricity demand would be met but presents several scenarios.   Alongside the expansion of nuclear power envisaged in its net zero pathway, the report also presents a scenario where gas-fired generation could increase by around 2,000 TWh by 2035 under the supply mix based on stated policies.   Janet Milongo, Energy Transition Lead at CAN International, said: “The 35-by-35 target will only represent climate progress if it is powered by sustainable renewable energy – and that’s not nuclear or fossil fuels. Success cannot be measured simply by how much of the world’s final energy consumption becomes electric. We must ask what generates that electricity, who has access to it, who owns the infrastructure, and whether it is helping communities transition away from fossil fuels. Developing countries must have the resources and capacity to own, govern and shape their electricity systems in the public interest.”   The global electrification agenda must also strengthen energy sovereignty. International cooperation and investment should build domestic capabilities and resilient, public-interest energy systems – not create new dependencies in which grids, technologies and energy resources are controlled by foreign governments or multinational corporations.   The report acknowledges that electrification alone is not enough to meet climate goals and that how additional electricity demand is met has major implications for emissions. CAN International called for rising demand to be met through the rapid, just and equitable expansion of sustainable renewable energy, supported by energy efficiency and sufficiency, storage and fit-for-purpose grids.   Public resources and political attention should be directed towards these rapidly deployable solutions, rather than costly, risky and slow-to-deploy nuclear projects or continued dependence on gas, oil and coal which run counter to climate science.   Additional civil society quotes:   Jacqueline Kimeu, Senior Climate Change and Energy Advisor, Christian Aid: “Investing scarce public resources in nuclear power is the wrong choice for a just energy transition, especially in developing countries, where electrification is not simply about replacing one technology with another. It means powering homes and hospitals, creating industries and jobs, and building resilient economies; needs that decentralised renewable energy can meet. Every dollar spent on nuclear power reduces investment in renewable solutions that can reach underserved communities quickly, create local jobs and provide clean energy without transferring hidden costs and risks to future generations. Achieving 35 by 35 therefore requires recognising countries’ different starting points and giving developing countries the finance, technology and policy space to shape their own renewable energy futures.”   Rajneesh Bhuee, Just Transition Co-lead, Recourse: “Electrification can be a powerful driver of the energy transition, but 35 by 35 only has climate credibility if it is powered by sustainable renewables. Paris alignment means avoiding new fossil fuel lock-in and directing public finance towards the grids, storage, efficiency and sustainable renewable energy systems needed to electrify at scale. Nuclear can not be treated as interchangeable with sustainable renewable solutions: doing so risks diverting scarce finance and attention from the rapid deployment of sustainable renewables. For the Global South, electrification must expand affordable, reliable access without creating new dependencies.”   Avantika Goswami, Programme Manager Climate Change and Green Economy, CSE India: “Electrification is a low-hanging fruit to support economy-wide decarbonisation as countries work towards achieving their climate goals. The effort must be to ensure that it is backed by grid-scale renewable energy coupled with storage, so that we achieve twin goals: electrifying infrastructure and drawing down fossil fuel use. For this to work, customized sectoral needs and gaps for developing countries must be identified, and developed countries must commit the corresponding financial and technological support for this global target to work.”   Stela Herschmann, Lead of International Policy, Observatorio do Clima (Brasil): “Electrification is key to tackling the root cause of the climate and energy crisis – but only if those electrons come from renewables, not fossil fuels. It’s a means, not an end. Any target needs to be anchored in real guardrails: it must close the energy access gap, be backed by public finance, and respect community rights, not repeat the harms of extraction.”   CAN International calls for:   Industrialised countries to take the lead in electrifying and decarbonising their high-consumption economies. Developing countries to receive the finance, technology and policy space needed to expand reliable, affordable and sustainable renewable electricity.   Electrification strategies in developing countries to expand energy access, power homes and public services, support sustainable industrialisation and job creation, and contribute to poverty reduction.   Progress to be measured not by a global percentage alone, but by whether electrification reduces fossil-fuel dependence, delivers universal access to quality renewable energy, strengthens democratic control over energy systems and reduces inequalities within and between countries.   Electrification and decarbonisation to advance together: the world cannot afford to electrify first and decarbonise later.   http://climatenetwork.org/2026/09/22/ieas-electrification-report-governments-must-back-renewables-not-nuclear-and-fossil-fuels/ Visit the related web page
	IMF-required austerity cuts quadrupled over past decade by Oxfam, End Austerity Campaign, agencies   Oct. 2026   Countries locked into IMF austerity programs are also around twice as vulnerable to economic fallout from war against Iran.   Countries locked into International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity programs are also, on average, around twice as vulnerable to the economic fallout from the US and Israel’s war against Iran and the escalating climate crisis, reveals new Oxfam analysis ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Bangkok, Thailand.   Of the 28 countries with ongoing IMF loan programs, 24 are being required to implement austerity cuts.   These countries were already facing acute food, fuel and economic pressures before the war began: 51 percent of people were food insecure, 1.8 times more than in the rest of the world. 57 percent of people lacked access to clean cooking fuel, around 2.4 times more than in the rest of the world. External debt service was around 1.5 times higher than in the rest of the world. Aid to these countries fell by 22 percent in real terms between 2021 and 2024 alone.   New IMF-imposed austerity now risks leaving these countries even less able to withstand the fallout from the war against Iran and future shocks.   The Fund has acknowledged that the war’s economic fallout is highly uneven – hitting poorer countries with limited safety nets hardest – and past crises have shown that cutting public spending during economic downturns can deepen poverty and inequality and push more people into hunger.   In Ecuador and Guinea-Bissau, for example, governments are being required to implement austerity measures equivalent to more than 4 percent of GDP. Sierra Leone’s fiscal adjustment is expected to surpass 5 percent of GDP. By the end of its loan program, the country will have implemented austerity measures equivalent to more than five times its annual healthcare budget.   Bolivia, whose IMF loan program was approved last week, is being required to implement austerity measures equivalent to 8.5 percent of GDP by 2029, about twice its annual healthcare budget.   “In the past we have seen the IMF take decisive action when countries were hit by global shocks – from COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine – using tools like emergency lending and Special Drawing Rights. But this time, the Fund is taking a very different path.   Instead of helping countries withstand another major shock, it is doubling down on austerity – forcing them to cut back on the very spending that can help protect people and recover – and leaving them even more vulnerable to the next crisis,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.   New Oxfam analysis of 161 loans across 81 countries shows that between 2018 and 2025, the IMF required spending cuts that were five times larger than those between 2012 to 2017 (a median cut of 1.7 percent of GDP compared to 0.3 percent). Over the same periods, median social protection floors in low-income countries with IMF programs dropped from 29 percent to around 14 percent of current public spending.   The findings come shortly after IMF’s 2026 Review of Program Design and Conditionality, concluded by its Executive Board on 14 September. The review recommended "frontloaded" adjustments, which require governments to slash public spending in bulk at the start of a program rather than phasing in cuts over time.   Ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Asia, where the war’s economic fallout is being felt particularly sharply, Oxfam is calling on the IMF to:   Establish immediate relief mechanisms and roll out emergency lending similar to the food shock window created after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ease loan conditions and fiscal targets for countries facing budget and balance-of-payment pressures due to the war.   Issue a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights to inject much-needed liquidity to help countries confront the economic fallout from the war and the looming impacts of a “super” El Nino weather event.   Sep. 2026   IMF-required austerity cuts quadrupled over past decade, and new Fund policy is poised to push for even deeper and harsher cuts.   The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has required borrowing countries to quadruple the size of their austerity cuts over the past decade, while simultaneously weakening the protection afforded to social spending in its loan programs, reveals new Oxfam analysis.   These cuts undermine vital spending on public services – from healthcare to education and housing – that protect low-income communities.   The findings come ahead of the conclusion of the IMF’s 2026 Review of Program Design and Conditionality, amid fears that the Fund could return to 1980s-style structural adjustment by demanding “frontloaded” cuts, which require governments to slash public spending in bulk at the start of a program rather than phasing in cuts over multiple years.   Oxfam’s analysis shows that median annual IMF-required austerity cuts (“budget-balance targets”) increased from 0.21 percent of GDP between 2012 and 2017 to 0.85 percent of GDP between 2018 and 2025, a four-fold increase.   Between 2018 and 2025, the IMF required nearly half of countries (25 out of 54) to cut public spending by more than 2 percent of GDP over the course of their program, compared to just one-third (12 out of 42) between 2012 and 2017.   Low-income countries spend on average 0.8 percent of GDP on social protection while spending on education remains below 4 percent of GDP.   Oxfam warns that the IMF could now seek to embed “frontloaded fiscal adjustment” as a core requirement across future programs. This is reminiscent of the ill-fated "shock therapy" approach, which not only imposes deeper and harsher cuts, but also severely restricts the ability of people and civil society organizations to assess the impacts of economic policies during the lifecycle of a loan program.   The IMF relies on “social spending floors” to address the harmful impacts of its programs. These floors typically require minimum spending on basic safety nets for targeted, poorer populations. Oxfam’s analysis shows that while more programs now include these floors, the protection they offer is shrinking. The median IMF-required social spending floor fell from 25 percent of current spending between 2012 and 2017, to 11 percent between 2018 and 2025.   “The IMF is in danger of regressing to the dark ages of structural adjustment,” said Oxfam International Senior Policy Advisor Nabil Abdo. “Frontloading austerity is like asking countries to swallow a whole bottle of poison that we already know is harmful in small doses - and then face the next shock with fewer doctors, fewer teachers and a weaker safety net. You can’t build economic resilience by dismantling the very structures that make societies resilient.”   Oxfam is urging the IMF Board of Executive Directors, ahead of its 14 September meeting, to reject a return to structural adjustment under the guise of “frontloaded fiscal adjustment” and to ensure its programs don’t exacerbate inequality.   The IMF should prioritize alternatives to austerity, including progressive tax policies like taxes on wealthy individuals and corporate profits, to build sustainable revenue without pushing millions more people into poverty.   http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/imf-required-austerity-cuts-quadrupled-over-past-decade-and-new-fund-policy-poised http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/countries-locked-imf-austerity-programs-are-also-around-twice-vulnerable-economic   Oct. 2026   Two Summits in Bangkok: IMF/World Bank and Finance Ministers Inside, the People’s Assembly Outside, by Isabel Ortiz. (IPS UN Bureau)   Bangkok hosted two summits last week. Inside the Queen Sirikit Convention Center, more than 15,000 finance ministers, central bank governors and CEOs of the world’s largest banks and corporations attended the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. They flew in business class and slept in five-star hotels to talk about growth, inflation and public spending, and thus to decide the destiny of billions of people they will never meet.   Outside, hundreds of social movements and civil society organizations held the People’s Assembly, for the 99% whose voice would not be heard. They flew economy and often shared modest rooms. The first was the summit of money and power. The second, the summit of the rest of us.   These are turbulent times, marked by crises that are not natural but man-made: war, energy shocks, cost of living crisis, debt crisis, climate crisis, inequality crisis, many aggravated by the Trump administration.   Inside the convention center, instead of working to solve these crises, the IMF and the World Bank told countries to be “resilient” and to build “buffers”, that is, to cut public spending now to survive the next crises. Rich countries were told to “take some pain today for growth tomorrow” and low-income countries, in the IMF Managing Director’s own words, “may be forced to cut much-needed development spending”.   In other words, accept the man-made disaster, and make the people pay for it with more austerity, cuts to wages, pensions and public services. Only military spending is spared, as a “competing spending priority” to be accommodated, and Europe’s rearmament is counted as growth.   The IMF report World Economic Outlook lifts global growth to 3.1% for 2026 on the back of investment in artificial intelligence (AI), a boom confined to only a handful of countries and a technology the IMF itself says will affect 40% of jobs worldwide, and that a third of jobs in high-income countries are at risk to be replaced by AI.   Both institutions presented private finance as the engine of development: the World Bank’s Development Committee agenda in Bangkok was centered on mobilizing private capital with public guarantees. In plain language, subsidizing large corporations with public money while prescribing cuts to the public services ordinary people depend on.   No communique was agreed in any ministerial committee. The corridor talk was how far both institutions have bent to the will of Washington: directors replaced (at the World Bank by private sector executives, most with no development experience); work on climate and gender shelved; and, above all, the chainsaw of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency applied worldwide, with the myth that tax cuts for the wealthy and austerity cuts that impoverish the working and middle classes are necessary.   Outside the convention center, the story was completely different. The People’s Assembly worked through the alternatives in over 50 sessions to formulate a new system accountable to people and planet, not to the 1%. Behind them stand nearly 400 million people: 200 million small farmers of La Via Campesina, 191 million workers of global unions, and tens of thousands of civil society organizations.   There were protests in Bangkok, and in more than 150 cities across 38 countries, including Argentina, Congo, Germany, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Uganda and the United Kingdom, with people marching peacefully under banners such as “We are the 99%” or “Tax elites and corporations” reflecting the aims:   • Tax the 1% not ordinary people: Progressive taxes on wealth, large corporations and big tech, and an end to tax havens, with an equitable UN tax convention, instead of consumption taxes and other taxes squeezing the working and middle classes.   • End austerity cuts: Public services and social protection for all; fund the right to health, education, social security, housing, water, instead of privatization and public private partnerships that shift costs to people.   • Debt justice: No country should cut health or education to pay creditors as happens in 51 countries today; audit and cancel illegitimate debts, end IMF surcharges and loan conditions, and a UN framework convention on sovereign debt instead of restructurings run by creditors.   • Climate justice: Make polluters pay, phase out fossil fuels, and a just transition.   • Democratize global economic governance: The IMF and World Bank are not the solution but part of the problem, as a few rich countries (and their corporations) hold most of the voting power (and only the US has a veto); move decisions on debt, tax and finance to the UN, where every country has one vote.   • Gender justice: Women are half of the world population but just an afterthought for policy makers, gender-responsive policies and budgets, public services, redistribution of care work.   • Decent jobs: Employment respecting international labor standards and living wages, union rights and protection for migrant workers.   • Food sovereignty, fair crop prices for farmers, agroecology instead of agrabusiness, land rights for indigenous peoples and small farmers, and rights guaranteed by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.   • Industrialization of developing countries, oriented to domestic and regional markets, instead of exporting raw materials and importing everything else.   • No more corporate impunity, promotion of private finance and privatization: public services can be funded by taxing the 1%, a binding UN treaty on business and human rights, and fair trade rules instead of investor-state arbitration that lets corporations sue governments.   • AI: Slow down and put AI under public control, binding public regulation of AI covering data harvesting, manipulation of public opinion, job destruction, civil liberties and environmental damage.   • Stop authoritarianism and the far-right: Defend civic space, Human Rights and democratic institutions against the authoritarian turn of governments.   • Peace and an end to the militarization that diverts budgets from social spending to rearmament, and an end to occupation and war crimes in Palestine.   Another world is possible, and last week it was formulated a short distance from the IMF/World Bank convention center. Finance ministers must now choose whom they serve: the millions of citizens who elected them, or the 1%, by bending to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank that deepens inequality.   * Isabel Ortiz, Director, Global Social Justice, was Director at the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, and a senior official at the UN and the Asian Development Bank.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2026/10/two-summits-in-bangkok-imf-world-bank-and-finance-ministers-inside-the-peoples-assembly-outside/ http://www.equals.ink/p/austerity-is-not-an-option http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026-0707-Austerity-and-Alternatives-HLPF-Isabel-Ortiz.pdf http://endausterity.org/alternatives/ http://endausterity.org/austerity-measures/ http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-executive-catherine-russell-remarks-debt-development-and-next-generation http://joining-forces.org/publications/balancing-anations-books-on-childrens-backs/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/global-financial-architecture-needs-urgent-reform-uphold-equality-and-human http://www.development-finance.org/en/news/894-5-may-oslo-debt-relief-could-allow-g77-to-double-social-climate-nature-spending   http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2026/06/02/does-the-design-of-the-international-monetary-system-sustain-inequality/ http://wir2026.wid.world/insight/exorbitant-privilege http://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/86364/why-worlds-financial-system-matters-climate-imf-world-bank-thailand/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/86026/enough-2-million-petition-signatures-unga-make-polluters-pay/ http://actionaid.org/publications/2025/human-cost-public-cuts-africa http://www.srpoverty.org/2024/10/17/statement-international-financial-system-not-fit-for-purpose-to-address-catastrophic-debt-crisis-un-poverty-expert/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79142-report-independent-expert-effects-foreign-debt-and-other-related http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/ie-foreign-debt/annual-thematic-reports http://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/our-work/between-life-and-debt http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/ http://ipdcolumbia.org/publication/end-austerity-a-global-report-on-budget-cuts-and-harmful-social-reforms-in-2022-25/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/end-austerity-global-report-budget-cuts-and-harmful-social-reforms-2022-25
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