http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HKG80770.htm

By Nao Nakanishi

HONG KONG, May 31 (Reuters) - Biofuels are likely to speed up global
warming as they are encouraging farmers to burn tropical forests that
have absorbed a large portion of greenhouse gases, climate scientists
warned.

The specialists, who gathered for an international conference in Hong
Kong, rang the alarm bell as Malaysian palm oil futures prices hit
all-time highs this week, helped by new demand for the vegetable oil
from the biodiesel sector.

"Some of these alternative energy schemes, such as biofuels, are
truly dangerous," said James Lovelock, an independent scientist known
for the Gaia theory.

"If exploited on a large scale, they will hasten our downfall," he
said in a video message delivered from Oxford.

Preserving tropical forests is seen as key to mitigating global
warming caused by greenhouse gases, as they capture a large volume of
carbon dioxide emissions.

In Asia, home to the world's top oil palm producers such as Malaysia
and Indonesia, there has been an investment boom in biodiesel plants,
which convert palm oil into biodiesel for cars.

This has helped to push up prices for palm oil -- the cheapest
vegetable oil -- by 25 percent so far this year. Prices had risen by
40 percent in 2006.

Chinese investors are also looking into building palm-based biodiesel
plants in Indonesia or Papua New Guinea as Beijing promotes biofuels
to cut the country's dependence on imported oil, although it already
has a big deficit in vegetable oils.

LITTLE CONTROL, FIRES

"The big issue, particularly in Southeast Asia, is oil palm
plantations. It is expanding rapidly for biofuels," said Simon Lewis
from School of Geography, Earth & Biosphere Institute at University
of Leeds.

"The likelihood is it will increase deforestation," he said. "It is
said this can be regulated. But most tropical forest is essentially
unregulated."

Lewis also said forest fires often caused by farmers were an
additional danger for global warming, to which the international
community had not paid enough attention.

"With the climate change, with periodic droughts, more of tropical
forests is possible to burn," he said.

"People will set fire to forests if they can because they want to
clear the forest for oil palm plantations."

The scientist said a record 2 billion tonnes of carbon went up into
the atmosphere from fires in Indonesia alone during the El Nino in
1997/1998, in addition to usual emissions of 1 billion to 2 billion
tonnes worldwide.

"The El Nino year of 1997/98 with massive burning across the tropics,
record-breaking temperatures, carbon dioxide concentration may become
a dangerously common feature in the coming decades," he said.