Setting sustainable standards for biofuel production: legal and institutional imperatives

Due to the extensive warnings and scientific predictions on the potential and emerging impacts of global climate change on human life and survival, policy makers across the world are beginning to embrace renewable energy options as ways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. As the United States President noted:

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save
our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately
make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy...We have
known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources
of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before.

One of such important option for diversifying energy sources is the production of biofuels. Biofuels include fuels produced and derived from plants, biomass, and other living organisms such as fats from animals and vegetable oil. Biofuels have been defined in Nigeria to include fuel ethanol, bio-diesel and other fuels made from biomass and primarily used for automotive, thermal and power generation, according to quality specifications stipulated by the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), and any other competent government agency.3 Unlike fossil fuels that are explored from
extensive and often expensive oil exploration activities, biofuels are derived from
plants and nature. As such, biofuels have gained increased public attention as a transformative response to the negative impacts of oil exploration, particularly oil price hikes, energy insecurity and also environmental side effects such as oil spillage, gas flaring and the contributions to climate change. According to the National NonFood Crops Centre, United Kingdom, biofuels reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 90% when compared with fossil petroleum.