Several groups including Greenpeace, ETC Group and Biofuelwatch are warning that the biotech lobby will mount a major green-washing public relations exercise during the Sixth Annual Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing that will be held at the Palais de congrès (19-22 July 2009).

During the Conference, the biotech industry will present various untested biotechnology innovations as solutions to climate change. “The biotech industry is seeking massive public and private investment for their untested technologies, whose health and environmental impacts have not been fully examined. Rather than be duped by yet another green mirage, governments should invest in real solutions to climate change and get serious about reducing CO2 emissions and commit to solutions that we know work -- like energy saving,” says Eric Darier, Director of Greenpeace in Quebec.

The new face of the biotech industry is being made over using nanotechnology and synthetic biology to produce cosmetically “clean energy” that will replace fossil fuels. “Technologies which transform plant cellulose into fuel are part of a massive industrial grab on ‘biomass’ – basically all living matter now found in forests, agricultural land and even our oceans,” claims Jim Thomas from the international new-technology watchdog, ETC Group. “The consequences on biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, farmers and forests world-wide are devastating.”

“Proponents of these technologies assume there is enough biomass to feed and fuel an expanding population. But the demand for plant biomass will be so vast it threatens to defoliate the surface of the planet just as we are recognizing the critical role of ecosystems in regulating climate,” explains Rachel Smolker, PhD, of Biofuelwatch. “The problems with corn ethanol, which NGOs warned about three years ago, were only the tip of the iceberg!”