Biofuels and the Globalisation of Risk The Biggest Change in North-South Relationships since Colonialism?

Biofuels and the Globalisation of Riskoffers the reader a fresh and compelling analysis of the politics and policies behind the biofuel story, critically examining the technological optimism and often-idealised promises it makes for the future. Starting with a brief history of bioenergy policy, the book goes on to explore the evolution of biofuels as a policy narrative, as a development ideal and as a socio-technical system through a series of interlinked case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Smith argues that the nature of biofuels, so debated and contested, allow us to understand the relationships between and possible impacts of climate change, globalisation and development in entirely new ways and in doing so allow us to better understand the shifting dynamics of risk, responsibility and impact that investment in biofuels creates. This essential new critique argues that the support for biofuels points to a deep reconfiguration of risk and responsibility and new forms of environmental determinism where the global south is encouraged to re-orient its agro-food systems towards biofuel crop production in order to allow the global north not to meaningfully engage with altering its levels of consumption, energy use or unsustainable development. Therefore, he argues, risks and responsibilities migrate from north to south and biofuels may constitute the biggest change in North-South relationships since colonialism.

James Smith is co-director of and a senior lecturer in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a director at the ESRC Innogen Research Centre at Edinburgh and a visiting fellow in development policy and practice at the Open University. His research explores the relationships between knowledge, science and development, particularly in relation to agricultural research and how it is practised. He has worked with many international organisations and research centres including Oxfam, DFID, IDRC and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.

Introduction
Chapter One Reconstituting Risk: The Globalisation of Risk and Responsibility
Chapter Two Biofuels and the Politics of the Future
Chapter Three Mapping the Metabolism of Bioenergy
Chapter Four Biofuel Policy and Indian Global-Local Dialectics
Chapter Five Sugar-coated: Bioethanol and Energy in the South
Chapter Six Energy and the Unglobalisation of Food
Chapter Seven Conclusion