Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that a U.S. tariff on Brazilian ethanol does not make sense. He further said that he will complain about it to U.S. President George W. Bush as the president is scheduled to visit Brazil later this week. The proposed ethanol alliance between Brazil and the U.S. is speculated to be formed in the scheduled visit of the US president. However, UN environment officials have said that the proposal is a mix bag with opportunities and risks for the environment.
Executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, Achim Steiner, has forwarded the view that the growing international demands for ethanol and other biofuels can potentially endanger the Amazon rain forest. The UN official has given a call for safeguarding should be immediately placed as the world’s largest remaining tropical forest is now a target area for agriculture.
The US president Bush and his counterpart Silva are expected to form an ‘ethanol alliance’. The alliance would is at creating quality standards for the alternative fuel, while joining forces to promote production of ethanol in nations lying between Brazil and the US. At present, sugarcane cultivation is considerably negligible now in the Amazon, but some environmentalists fear that growing demands for the bio-fuel could invite cane growers into the rainforest.
The Brazilian president has asked to abolish the restrictive tariff imposed by US on Brazilian ethanol. He is quite keen to boost global trade in Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol, since it is cheaper and eight times more energy efficient than the corn ethanol made in the US. Lula is also expected to ask the US government to reduce the trade distorting farm subsidies in order to give a push to Doha round trade talks.
