The race to beat a 2012 deadline that aims to reduce green house gas emissions to an average of 5%, set by the Kyoto Protocol (1997) is suffering a set back. Ordinarily most of the efforts towards this goal had been geared towards development of alternative renewable energy systems with little or no carbon emission.

Until recently, most industrialized countries had shown little regard for the 2012 target by displaying a lackadaisical attitude in adopting available alternative energy systems. These countries cited the low cost benefit of these systems as their alibi.

A more positive turn was reached with the boom of biofuels, more industrialized nations started adopting it as a viable alternative to the carbon-belching combustion energy systems. The situation look goods and the goal set in 1997, achievable. However all that is about to change or is it?

The tremendous success of biofuels in such a short space of time is amazing. 25% of cars in Germany today, run on bioethanol while France has a whooping 45% of its cars running on bioethanol and biodiesel. Biofuels are sourced mainly from sugar crops (Sugar cane and Sugar beet), or starch (corn/maize), and also from cassava. They ferment yeast to give ethanol (bioethanol) which can be processed further to give biodiesel, and that is where the problem lies.

Experts have pointed fingers at biofuels as the main cause of the drastic rise in food prices and food shortages globally. Thus biofuels poses the world with a dilemma: save the climate and suffer starvation. Staruss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), recently described the situation as an ethical problem: "The vital problem of global warming has to be balanced with the fact that there are people who are going to starve to death… producing biofuels is a crime against humanity".

For this reason, thousands of delegates from 162 countries are meeting this week in Bonn Germany at a global warming conference in which biofuels has taken centre stage rather dramatically. Also at the UN food price crisis summit currently taking place in Rome, it’s blame game, as organizations and countries defend their views on biofuels. The US, Brazil and the EU - the main players on the biofuel stage - maintain that soaring energy costs should bear most blame.

"We recognise that biofuels have an impact, but the real issue is about energy, increased consumption and weather-related issues in grain-producing countries," US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has however come out with very different conclusions. "We've done some analysis looking at the contribution of biofuels demand on cereals prices indexes. We found that for the price increase from 2006-2007, we attribute about 30% to biofuels," explains the institute's biofuels expert, Mark Rosegrant. "The most direct effect is the diversion of land from corn, sugarcane and other crops to biofuels instead of food and seed that also shifts land out of other crops, sometimes out of rice and wheat. Once the price of corn starts going up, there was some shift from poor consumers in Africa to alternatives like rice."

A lot of research is currently going on to find non-food crops that can be used for biofuels. Researchers are looking at crops like jatropha and some varieties of algae which naturally produce oils that can be used directly as biofuels. India is currently leading the research in this area. Africa’s demand for biofuels is minimal, yet the effects are bearing hard on her citizens. This development requires a shift of focus to research and agriculture as a double edged solution to this harsh choice between food and fuel.