The Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA) was formally launched on Saturday evening by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of leaders of a number of partner countries on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi. The GBA has been in the works for some time now and is a key initiative and priority under India’s G20 presidency. The alliance is aimed at facilitating international cooperation and intensifying the use of sustainable biofuels, along with facilitating global biofuels trade and technical support for national biofuel programmes.
The GBA, the effort for which was spearheaded by India, the United States, and Brazil, has been launched with nine initiating members–India, the US, Brazil, Argentina, Bangladesh, Italy, Mauritius, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates–while Canada and Singapore are observer countries. In all, 19 countries and 12 international organisations have already agreed to join the GBA.
Seven of the 19 countries are from the G20, four are among the G20 invitee countries, while eight are neither G20 members nor invitees. The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Economic Forum, International Energy Agency, International Energy Forum, International Renewable Energy Agency, and International Civil Aviation Organization are among the organisations that have agreed to join the alliance. Modi launched the GBA in the presence of leaders from the US, Brazil, the UAE, Singapore, Italy, Argentina, Bangladesh, and Mauritius.
“The launch of the Global Biofuels Alliance marks a watershed moment in our quest towards sustainability and clean energy. I thank the member nations who have joined this Alliance,” Modi said in a post on Twitter. Biofuels refer to renewable fuels derived from biomass–from plants or agricultural, animal, domestic, and industrial biowaste. Biofuels are significantly cleaner than the conventional fossil fuels.
Earlier on Saturday, while addressing the first session of the G20 Summit, Modi urged G20 member states and invited nations to join the GBA, which aims to enhance global cooperation in biofuels and intensify their use.
“Today, the need of the hour is that all countries should work together in the field of fuel blending. Our proposal is to take an initiative at a global-level to take ethanol blending in petrol up to 20 percent. Or alternatively, we could work on developing another blending mix for the greater global good, one that ensures a stable energy supply while also contributing to climate security. In this context, today, we are launching the Global Biofuel Alliance. India invites all of you to join this initiative,” the Prime Minister had said.
In a statement, the White House said that the alliance’s founding members will make efforts to add more countries to the group. “The Alliance is focused on securing the supply of biofuels, ensuring these biofuels remain affordable and are produced sustainably. Founding members of the Alliance will continue outreach to other countries committed to these shared values with the goal of adding more countries to this effort,” the statement from the White House read.
In February, the government had announced that Brazil, India, and the US, as leading biofuel producers and consumers, will work together with other interested countries and agencies to develop the GBA. The alliance will work in collaboration with relevant existing regional and international agencies as well as initiatives in the bioenergy, bio-economy, and energy transition fields. The US and Brazil are seen as global leaders in biofuels and account for 52 per cent and 30 per cent of global ethanol production, respectively.
“GBA will support worldwide development and deployment of sustainable biofuels by offering capacity-building exercises across the value chain, technical support for national programs and promoting policy lessons-sharing. It will facilitate mobilizing a virtual marketplace to assist industries, countries, ecosystem players and key stakeholders in mapping demand and supply, as well as connecting technology providers to end users. It will also facilitate development, adoption and implementation of internationally recognized standards, codes, sustainability principles and regulations to incentivize biofuels adoption and trade,” the government said in a release on Saturday.
In July, consultations pertaining to the GBA were held on the sidelines of the G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Goa, in which 19 countries had expressed their interest in joining the alliance. “This signifies a momentous step forward in advancing the development and deployment of biofuels through a multi-stakeholder global alliance,” the government had said at the time.
For India, which is the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil and depends on imports to meet over 85 per cent of its requirement of the commodity, increasing the use of biofuels is a key tool towards two ends–reducing dependency on energy imports and limiting the carbon footprint of the country’s rapidly growing energy use.
Underscoring the need of a global biofuels body, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had earlier said that while sustainable biofuels have huge potential, there are a number of hurdles as well, including feedstock supply issues, technological limitations, policy framework, and financing and investment.
“There is an urgent need to have a global platform which can address the underlying challenges and enable wider international cooperation to realise the huge untapped potential of sustainable biofuels to cater to common global goods of climate change mitigation through reduced carbon emissions and achieving sustainable development goals,” the minister had said in July.
After initial hiccups, India has tasted success in its ethanol-petrol blending programme in the past few years. India achieved the target of 10 per cent ethanol blending in petrol in June last year, months ahead of the targetted timeline of November 2022. The success in the ethanol blending programme prompted the government to advance the deadline for pan-India E20–petrol with 20 per cent ethanol–rollout to 2025-26 from 2030. According to the government, the country is well on track to meet the revised E20 petrol timeline. India is also looking at blending diesel with suitable biofuels and natural gas with biogas.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders at the launch of the Global Biofuels Alliance, at the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. (PTI Photo) 
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