Address by Minister Mauro Vieira at the opening of the “Sustainable Mobility: Ethanol Talks” seminary – Jakarta, October 9, 2023

It is a pleasure to be with you in Jakarta today for this important and timely seminar.

The world faces the pressing need to collectively reduce emissions as we ensure energy access to our populations in a context of growing demand. The task is far too complex and urgent, and the only way to address it is through cooperation. We need to bring major players and stakeholders together – governments, private actors, academia. We need to act together, and for that we need to think together. 

Today’s “Ethanol Talks” provides us with an opportunity to do just that: think together. Here we will discuss ways to decarbonize the mobility sector, focusing specifically on how biofuels can contribute to this goal.

As most of you know, Brazil has been travelling the biofuels road for nearly five decades, and I believe we have a story to tell, an experience to share. It is a story that can play a role and be helpful in the world’s collective effort towards a prosperous, low-carbon future.

I wish to pay tribute to UNICA and APLA for putting together such interesting panels addressing topics like the importance of policy frameworks; the use of ethanol in the automotive industry; technological solutions for emission reduction in the mobility sector; as well as ethanol production and use in Southeast Asia.

We also welcome this initiative as a hallmark of Brazil’s renewed willingness to further cooperation and dialogue with our hosts today, Indonesia, and, of course, ASEAN member countries as well. The renewed Strategic Partnership between Brazil and Indonesia and the recently established Brazil-ASEAN Sectoral Dialogue Partnership offer promising frameworks for strengthening our ties, including in the bioenergy sector.

At the multilateral level, Brazil also engages in key initiatives such as the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) and the Biofuture Platform, which help secure a place for bioenergy in the global debate about energy transitions. We are proud to be the first country to lead the Biofuture Platform, which is now part of the Clean Energy Ministerial.

Brazil - along with Argentina, Bangladesh, India, Italy, Mauritius, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and United States - is a founding member of the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA), launched during the G20 Summit in New Delhi last September. I believe this initiative can significantly contribute to the development of a global biofuels market. Countries from the Global South could play a major role in this promising market. I encourage ASEAN countries to consider joining the Global Biofuels Alliance.

Ladies and gentlemen,

There is no single solution when it comes to energy transition. Brazil believes that each country should be able to choose the technological pathways that best fit their national priorities and realities in their efforts to decarbonize the energy sector and to move towards a low-carbon or carbon-neutral economy. 

In Brazil, more than 85% of the electricity mix and 48% of overall energy correspond to a wide variety of clean and renewable sources. These results have been achieved with locally adapted technologies, taking advantage of our national realities.

I am proud to say Brazil’s energy policymakers never overlooked bioenergy. On the contrary: modern, sustainable bioenergy is the most important clean energy source in our country, corresponding to nearly one-third of the total energy supply. The Brazilian experience demonstrates that modern and sustainable biofuels can be a competitive solution. Thanks to biofuels, Brazil avoided burning 2.5 billion barrels of oil over these five decades. Thanks to biofuels, Brazil is the second largest creator of green jobs in the world.

In our experience, the production and use of biofuels depend heavily on an enabling environment – in other words, it depends on public policy. Through an innovative and one-of-a-kind bioenergy program called RENOVABIO, Brazil has adopted a legal framework that created the conditions for emission reduction targets and the trading of carbon credits to mitigate emissions in the mobility sector. We now plan to expand this program to second-generation biofuels, such as sustainable aviation fuels, biomethane, biodiesel, green diesel, and aviation biokerosene.

I hope this and other national experiences that we will share today will contribute to increasing production and use of biofuels in Southeast Asia. We are geographically far apart, but we do share a number of social, economic and environmental characteristics. Thanks to these commonalities, I trust our biofuels story will be of interest to you.

You are all here because you also recognize the importance of building a comprehensive, sustainable, smart, and large-scale bioenergy strategy. In particular, Brazil welcomes Indonesia’s ambitious strategy translated into the Sugarcane Bioethanol Program for Energy Security. We are ready to strengthen dialogue on this issue.

During our upcoming G20 presidency and as hosts of the Clean Energy Ministerial next year, Brazil will continue to shed light on this debate. Bioenergy is especially important to developing countries as it helps to create high-quality jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, bring development to rural areas and increase energy security.

As pointed out by IRENA and the IEA, without scaling up our use of bioenergy, the world will not reach its climate goals. From our vantage point, the IEA’s call for the world to triple its modern bioenergy supply until 2050 is feasible, as long as proper policies, frameworks, technology, finance, and good practices are put in place.

I look forward to working with all of you and wish you a very fruitful seminar today. Thank you.