Green Distortions, Protectionist Policies Undermine European Biofuel Targets

GlobEcon's Dr Gernot Pehnelt on Tuesday will square-off with BirdLife International over the EU's biofuel policy in a debate co-sponsored by the European Parliament's Land Use and Food Policy Intergroup (LUFPIG) in association with GLOBE EU. Dr Pehnelt will present the findings of his latest report, entitled, ?European Policies Towards Palm Oil: Sorting Out Some Facts.?

WHO:		Dr Gernot Pehnelt, director, GlobEcon
		Ariel Brunner, senior EU agriculture policy officer, BirdLife International
		Moderated by Dr Paulo Casaca, former chairman, Land Use & Food Policy Intergroup
WHEN:		Tuesday, 13 April 2010, 12:30 ? 14:00
WHAT:		Presentation and Panel Discussion
WHERE:		European Parliament, Room TBC

To download the report, please visit http://www.globecon.org/en/publications/globecon-research-papers.html.

The face-off aims to answer key questions in the biofuel debate:

Are the EU's calculations on GHG reduction accurate?

Can imported fuels such as palm oil be part of the solution?

Will the Renewables Directive harm the developing world?

Dr Gernot Pehnelt is founder and director of the independent research and consulting institute GlobEcon and a research associate at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE). He studied economics at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena and economics, politics andphilosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

From 2002 to 2004 he worked as a research associate and consultant at the BIfA Environmental Institute in Augsburg, where he primarily conducted benchmarking studies. From 2004 to 2007 he worked as a teaching and research associate at the Chair of Economic Policy at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena. Pehnelt holds a PhD in economics. His areas of expertise and research focus are health economics, development economics and international relations.

If you cannot attend and wish to interview Dr Gernot Pehnelt or learn more about his new study, please contact him at +49 179 1220589 or gp@globecon.org.