Braving the Storm: How Are Global Biofuel Policies Sustained Despite Being Contested? An Analysis of the Biofuel Discourses of the EU, Brazil and Mozambique

Abstract

Considered as a remedy to multiple problems that our world is facing, biofuels are nowadays promoted on a global scale. Despite this globalised approach, however, biofuels are heavily contested. Not only the social implications of biofuels are disputed and uncertain, particularly in countries of the global South, but also their environmental and economic rationales. Given these huge controversies, policies promoting biofuels would seem difficult to maintain. Yet, support for them has been surprisingly well established on the political agendas. With the aim of understanding this puzzle, this study asks how the dominant approach to biofuels has been sustained on a global level. In order to answer this question, the meanings and assumptions in biofuel discourses are explored through the lens of Maarten Hajer’s “argumentative” discourse analysis. Based on the existence of a “partnership for sustainable bioenergy” between the EU, Brazil and Mozambique, the study takes these three locations as case studies. The analysis reveals that various discursive strategies, including a particular problem construction and the use of two main story-lines, have played an important role in ensuring the permanence of the global approach to biofuels. Moreover, while the discourse of critics against biofuels demonstrates that there is room for contestation, the analysis finds that the opponents’ discourse largely fails to target the most salient justification for biofuels. A more effective strategy for critics would therefore be to also question the problem constructions underpinning this main justification in the global discourse.