Backgrounder: Previous Summits of the Americas

Backgrounder: Things to watch at 5th Summit of the Americas

Special Report: Fight against Global Warming

    PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke here Saturday in favor of the use of sugarcane-based ethanol as an alternative to fossil-based fuel offering to share its know-how in the world's fight against global warming.

    "Brazil is ready to share the technologies it developed for more than 30 years and to expand and strengthen initiatives of cooperation," Lula told a plenary session of the Fifth Summit of the Americas dedicated to the topic of energy security.

    "The production of sugarcane ethanol, respecting the realities of each country, increases energy and food security, and generates revenues," Lula said.

    "Biofuels are an effective weapon in the fight against global warming," he said.

    The draft of the summit's finial declaration includes clauses encouraging development of biofuel development, but the practice of turning sugarcane into ethanol remains controversial, with critics arguing it could occupy agricultural land otherwise destined to food production, as well as areas currently covered by forests.

    Bolivian President Evo Morales, at a press conference here earlier Saturday, said he would not sign the final declaration, if no agreement is reached to remove clauses advocating biofuels.

    "The society demands renewable, clean, inexpensive fuels," Lula said. "The region has weather and soil conditions to export energy without relegating our domestic demand, much less our food security."

    "We would be the first ones to condemn biofuels if they represented a threat to food production or to the preservation of our forests," he said.

    Brazil and the U.S. are the world's main producers and consumers of ethanol. Brazil's 30-year-old ethanol fuel program is based on efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation.

    The Brazilian car manufacturing industry developed flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on any proportion of gasoline and ethanol. Additionally, since 1976 the government made it mandatory to blend anhydrous ethanol with gasoline.

    In the U.S., ethanol is mainly produced from corn, which is considered less efficient than sugarcane ethanol. The Brazilian government has demanded that the Obama administration suspend taxes on Brazilian ethanol exports to the United States.