Bloomberg Slams US Energy Law Over Corn Ethanol
UNITED NATIONS - A new US energy law will cause an increase in global food prices and lead to starvation deaths worldwide because it continues to promote corn ethanol, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.
"People literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up," Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a UN General Assembly debate on climate change.
UNITED NATIONS - A new US energy law will cause an increase in global food prices and lead to starvation deaths worldwide because it continues to promote corn ethanol, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.
"People literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up," Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a UN General Assembly debate on climate change.
The new law favored corn ethanol by continuing to subsidize it while taxing sugar ethanol, Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg joined other critics of corn ethanol production in saying it was not a net producer of energy, unlike sugar ethanol. That is, corn ethanol does not yield more energy than it takes to produce, transport and use it.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted the Bush administration's biofuels policy as "genocidal" in a series of articles last year, saying they threatened to worsen global hunger by pushing up prices for food crops used to make ethanol.
