The Biofuel Failure: How Green Energy Became a Land Grab
June 19, 2026 · Frisian News
Governments and corporations cleared 30 million hectares of forest for palm oil and sugarcane biofuel production between 2000 and 2020, displacing small farmers and calling it climate action. Studies show the carbon savings never materialized when accounting for the destroyed ecosystems.
In Indonesia, Malaysia, and West Africa, vast areas of forest and farmland were cleared for palm oil and sugarcane biofuel production between 2000 and 2020. Governments called it climate action. The corporations that bought the land called it investment. The farmers who lived there had no say in either story.
The European Union, United States, and other wealthy nations set binding targets for biofuel consumption. Brussels mandated that 10 percent of transport fuel come from "renewable" sources by 2020 (later relaxed). This created instant demand. Banks financed it. Governments subsidized it. And land prices in the Global South spiked. Rural people who had farmed the same soil for generations watched it get sold to foreign firms for commodity crops.
But here is what the marketing did not mention. When you burn down a forest to plant palm oil, you release decades of stored carbon. Studies show that most biofuel crops produce more emissions over their lifetime than the fossil fuels they replace. The carbon "savings" only work on paper if you ignore what happens to the land.
Oil companies invested in biofuel subsidiaries. Investment firms bought land in Africa and Southeast Asia at bargain prices, then sold the output to European refineries at premium rates. Land globally fell under "investment contracts" of this kind, many signed without consent from local communities. Governments took a cut through carbon credits and renewable fuel mandates that guaranteed buyers.
The green energy transition was real. The land grab was real too. Twenty years later, the forests are gone, the small farmers are gone, and the emissions savings were never there. We called it climate policy. It was colonialism with a sustainability stamp.
Published June 19, 2026 · Frisian News