Environmental Benefits, Challenges and Valuation of Biofuels Policy Ziolkowska Jadwiga1,*, Simon Leo1 1Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of California at Berkeley, USA *Email ID: ziolkowska@berkeley.edu
Abstract Biofuels policies affect several sectors, including transport, energy, national and international markets, agriculture, and the environment. While the market and price implications of biofuels policies have been widely studied, there has been relatively little research on the evaluation of their environmental effects and footprint. These issues are important both now and in the future, both for policy makers and scientists, as they have direct implications for socio-economic conditions, and for other sectors (e.g. agriculture). This paper contributes to filling this gap. Its aim is to extend scientific discussion about the current and future environmental challenges for biofuels policy making and to make a start at addressing some of these challenges. We base our analysis on the experience from the US and the European Union, which represent the biggest ethanol and biodiesel producer countries (country associations), respectively. We examine the environmental costs and benefits of current biofuels policies in these regions and discuss, from both scientific and political perspectives, certain key short- and long-term challenges and uncertainties relating to the environment. We then provide an overview of the primary methodologies for valuation that are currently being used by environmental economists to address problems such as these, and offer a preliminary evaluation of whether these methods are likely to be helpful in supporting political decision making processes in biofuels policies. Top Keywords Biofuels, Valuation, Decision making support, Environmental protection. Top |