The issue of green energy is expected to set Boris Johnson and Joe Biden at loggerheads on Monday at the G7 summit on June 26-28 in the Bavarian Alps, Germany, reported The Telegraph.
The differing approaches to dealing with the cost of living crisis amid surging global energy costs and skyrocketing inflation is expected to test the volatile unity of the sanctions-wielding anti-Russia front.
Transatlantic Rift
As leaders of the G7 brainstorm ways to reconcile their restrictions against Moscow over its ongoing special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine with the looming recession that the sanctions and logistical disruptions are bringing closer, the UK Prime Minister is planning to offer those gathered his own plan.
Johnson is to suggest that land currently used for crop-based biofuels be repurposed to grow more food. According to him, the amount of biofuel used globally should be cut by 10 per cent, with the land thus repurposed for other crops potentially able to feed 3.5 million people.
The British PM believes that this approach might be conducive in reigning in soaring food prices and help avert famine in poorer countries.
Warnings of a "real risk" of multiple famines in 2022 and the following year have already come from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The imminent food crisis has been augmented by derailed crop production in one of the largest gain producing regions in the world, as Ukraine and Russia account for an estimated 30% of global exports of wheat, 20% of maize, and 76% of sunflowers. Furthermore, the Western nations accused Russia of blocking grain shipments from the Black Sea ports. Moscow, however, clarified that the ports were mined by Ukraine, making shipments impossible.
Nevertheless, Boris Johnson will echo the West’s accusatory rhetoric, saying:
“Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine are creating terrible aftershocks across the world, driving up energy and food prices as millions of people are on the brink of famine.”
Boris Johnson is planning to urge the G7 leaders, according to the outlet, to “come together and apply their combined economic and political heft to help Ukraine and make life easier for households across the world.”
“Nothing should be off the table,” Johnson is to insist.
Ahead of Johnson’s message to the G7 leaders at the summit, Downing Street said the PM sought to urge world leaders to “work together to consider temporarily reducing biofuel production in order to mitigate the spikes caused by the invasion.”
However, this attempt to move away from green fuels will be shot down by the 47th POTUS, wrote the publication. Joe Biden, who has from the outset campaigned on a transition away from fossil fuels, will try to block these plans, arguing the need to protect US farmers and avoid jeopardizing climate commitments, according to Washington officials cited by the outlet.
Biden has been vainly trying to reign in skyrocketing gasoline costs in his country and the popular discontent over the issue, repeatedly blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the price hike, while recently also admitting that the US and EU's decisions to impose sanctions against Russia, especially the ban on oil purchases, played a role.
However, with the Democratic POTUS’s rating with voters plummeting in the polls and tough November midterm elections looming, it was suggested that maintaining support for biocrop farms could help the party maintain support in rural areas of the US.
Furthermore, America is the largest global producer of ethanol for use as a transport fuel, and one of the biggest producers of biodiesel, recalled the publication.
Just recently, in April, Joe Biden announced a plan to expand the use of ethanol during the summer period, underscoring that “biofuels have a role to play right now”.
Downing Street dismissed reports of a “deep freeze” in relations between Johnson and Biden over the green fuel issue after the UK Prime Minister did not show up for a previously arranged meeting on global infrastructure chaired by the 47th POTUS on Sunday. No 10 sources, however, were cited as admitting that the plan devised by Boris Johnson needed the backing of all G7 leaders if it was to have any hope of being implemented.
There are apparently all signs of a growing transatlantic rift on the issue. Cited officials from the North American delegations reportedly argued that temporarily ditching biofuel would undermine countries’ support of Net Zero, while at the same time driving up the price of fuel.
The term net zero means refers to a balance between the carbon emitted into the atmosphere, and the carbon removed from it.
Canada also intends to rebuff the UK proposal, according to cited insiders.
“A temporary waiver on biofuel would be an important signal by the G7 to reduce grain prices in the short term and to relax the market situation,” a source was cited By Reuters as saying. Meanwhile, Germany is understood to be backing Johnson’s proposed remedy.
Weighing in on concerns regarding the fallout from stepping away from green fuel, Downing Street sources were cited as saying that the price impact would be limited due to the fact that bioethanol – the green component of E10 petrol – comprises no more that 0.1 percent of the global fuel supply. They argued that this would produce a “negligible” effect on Net Zero.
Boris Johnson’s intervention, which will follow a virtual address to the G7 by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, is seen by analysts as an attempt to yet again divert attention away from the threat to his premiership at home.
In the UK, Johnson is facing growing calls to resign. Earlier this month, 148 Conservative MPs expressed no confidence in Boris Johnson, just 32 short of the number required to force his resignation.
However, the chorus of dissenting voices has grown stronger after a humiliating by-election double defeat for the Tories on 23 June. The Liberal Democrats claimed Tiverton and Honiton, while Labour secured the “red wall” seat of Wakefield.
Johnson still faces a probe by the Commons Privileges Committee into whether he misled MPs earlier in the year over the “Partygate” scandal. A flurry of no-confidence letters have been sent to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, an MP was cited as saying.
Under current rules, another no confidence vote cannot be held for a year. But rebel MPs have reportedly been planning to use elections to the executive of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers to topple Johnson.
They are believed to be hoping to elect enough anti-Johnson MPs to prompt the committee to change the rules on leadership elections, allowing another vote of confidence in the PM before June 2023.