Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against the proposed EU targets to increase the use of biofuels in road transport. I would like to thank Andrew Duff and Jeffrey Titford for their replies to my previous email in February.
There is mounting evidence that the large-scale production of biofuels will:
– destroy forests that are some of the world’s most important habitats
– take food and land from the poorest people
– increase, not reduce climate change
Please vote against the biofuels targets. Supporting stronger proposals to improve the fuel efficiency of new vehicles would be a much better way to combat climate change.
Please let me know how you intend to vote.
You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Yours sincerely,
Denis Walker
6 Jun 2008
From: jeffrey.titford@europarl.europa.eu
Subject: RE: Stop the biofuels targets
Date: 9 June 2008 09:09:23 BST
To: denis@seefoe.org.uk
Dear Mr. Walker,
Thank you for your message regarding the EUs policy towards bio fuels.
We will be voting against such legislation.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has always condemned this idea as
irresponsible, and we have tried to highlight the dangers of ploughing
forward with this project. As usual our protests went unheard, but yet
again, we were proved to be correct. We are the only party in the
Parliament that has consistently voted against these targets, and the
EUs drive at any cost for such legislation.
It may interest you to learn that a number of green charities, such as
Friends of the Earth, receive substantial amounts of EU funding. It has
been suggested that part of the reason the EU is "buying up" charities
like this, is so that these charities call for action, which the EU then
takes. This makes the EU look like it is more democratic and responsive,
when in reality, the EU was always going to take these powers anyway, it
simply needed the request to sound like it came from an "independent"
charity, when in actual fact it comes from a charity the EU has a
financial controlling share in.
The target of a 5.75% market share for biofuels in the overall transport
fuel supply is wholly unreasonable and unsustainable for a number of
reasons:
(i) the damage caused to precious tropical habitats in developing
nations, by cultivation of oil-palm and soya etc – for the purposes of
the export of bio-fuels to EU-controlled markets.
(ii) this expansion in bio-fuel crops is contributing more to the
carbon-imbalance than the substitution of bio-fuel, for fossil- fuels
will do to redress it.
(iii) is it a good idea for developing nations to be producing bio fuels
at the expense of food production?
We at UKIP feel that the inherently distant, un-democratic and corrupt
nature of the EU, coupled with its laughable attempts to cloak its
cynical intentions in altruistic camouflage ("environmental protection",
"health and safety", "human rights" etc) mean that it deserves nothing
but contempt. We look forward to the day we can withdraw from the EU,
take our billions of pounds with us, and spend it on serious and
sensible measures to support public services and protect the
environment.
Thank you for your message, and rest-assured UKIP MEPs will continue to
vote against this and try to guard against any further measures, as it
will only do harm to developing countries, where the environment will be
irreversibly damaged.
Yours sincerely,
p.p.Jeffrey Titford MEP
(Jamie Illingworth – Assistant)
Office of Jeffrey Titford
Rochester House
145 New London Road
Chelmsford
CM2 0QT
Tel: 01245 266466
Fax: 01245 252071
Email: jtitford@ukip.org
www.jeffreytitfordmep.co.uk
www.ukip.org
