Sugarcane as a Key Element Against Global Warming to be Highlighted at Green Week i...( SAO PAULO June 23 /- What does su...)

SAO PAULO, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- What does sugarcane have to do with Global Warming? Everything, when you consider Brazil's highly successful, 30-year experience with sugarcane as a feedstock for ethanol. In place since the mid-70s, the largest program in the world to replace a fossil fuel with renewable energy has saved some 600 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It would take 20 years for six billion trees to achieve the same results.

Details of the Brazilian success story will be presented at a panel on Wednesday, June 24, during Green Week, the largest annual conference on the European Union's environmental policies, scheduled from June 23 to 26 in Brussels. At its booth in the exhibit area, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA), the largest organization representing Brazil's sugar-energy industry, will also provide detailed information about the efficiency of large-scale production and use of sugarcane ethanol as a motor fuel to reduce GHG emissions. In Brazil, the biofuel replaces over half the country's gasoline needs by volume, making gasoline the alternative fuel. Flex-fuel cars introduced in 2003, which run on any mixture of gasoline and ethanol, now account for 34% of Brazil's entire light vehicle fleet and close to 90% of new light vehicle sales.

According to the senior international affairs advisor to UNICA's president, Geraldine Kutas, the idea is to detail the impressive performance of sugarcane in the production of ethanol and other value-added products, and its subsequent impact on Brazil's energy matrix: 46% of it is composed by renewable sources. "Brazil could be a low-carbon economy. Unfortunately, even though the country is a large renewable energy producer, it is also the fourth largest emitter of carbon, because of deforestation. The fight against climate change requires ambitious public policies and joint leadership from the government and the public
'/>"/>