Can large-scale biofuels production be sustainable by 2020?

Worldwide, many nations impose blending of their transport fuels with biofuels, approximating 10% globally by 2020, to contribute to energy security while reducing emission of green house gasses (GHG). Food riots, scientific insights that question the GHG benefits and raised concern about the loss of biodiversity, have lead to the formulation by various governments of sustainability criteria for biofuels to comply with. In this paper, we assess this conditionality and argue that large-scale biofuels production will be unable to comply with these criteria in 2020, and can therefore not be qualified as sustainable.