**COP30 and the Bioeconomy: A Costly Fantasy Disguised as Climate Progress**
*By Melanie Collette, CFACT Policy Analyst*
November 2025 saw COP30 unfold in Belém, Brazil, amid a familiar spectacle: jet-setting elites lecturing on climate change from air-conditioned halls. This year’s darling concept? The “bioeconomy”—swapping fossil fuels for products derived from nature’s bounty: plants, forests, algae, microbes, and waste. Imagine biofuels for your F-150, bioplastics for packaging, industrial chemicals, even drugs sourced from organic scraps.
Proponents promise circular economies, drastic emission reductions, rural job booms, and freedom from foreign oil barons and rare-earth tyrants. It evokes Reagan-era optimism: American grit turning cornfields into engines of energy independence. But this UN-fueled fantasy is, in reality, big-government snake oil — crony subsidies inflating costs, ravaging ecosystems, and mocking true conservation.
Conservatives have battled these mandates since the Paris Agreement’s aftermath; the bioeconomy is their sequel, exporting American prosperity to Brazilian bureaucrats while squeezing U.S. families.
### Crop-Based Biofuels: The Scam at the Core
Crop-based biofuels epitomize the problem. EPA models often depict corn ethanol as a low-carbon hero. But the reality bites: mandates surge demand, pushing farmers to raze prairies and forests. This “indirect land-use change” (ILUC) releases buried carbon, often doubling emissions over decades.
A seminal 2008 study by Searchinger confirmed that when ILUC is accounted for, U.S. ethanol rivals gasoline’s carbon footprint. Reflecting this, the European Union—despite its green ambitions—now phases out high-ILUC fuels to zero by 2030 under its Renewable Energy Directive.
The consequences hit home. Biofuel diversions contributed to the 2007-08 global food crisis, spiking corn and soy prices by 75%, according to World Bank leaks. Families in America’s heartland, not speculators, suffered dearly. That isn’t security; it’s starvation politics from Washington.
### Brazil’s RenovaBio: More Hype Than Hope
Brazil’s RenovaBio program, a central showcase at COP30, fares worse. Since 2017, it trades credits for “lifecycle-low” biofuels, claiming transport emission reductions. Lula’s administration touts it as a bioeconomy beacon.
However, peer reviews reveal deep flaws: no ILUC accounting, enabling sugarcane expansion that eats into the Amazon rainforest. An International Energy Agency (IEA) report criticizes weak fraud controls and deforestation risks amid growing biofuel demand. Investigations prior to COP30 exposed land grabs and clashes with indigenous peoples—hardly the sustainable idyll being sold.
### Wood Pellets: Renewable Power’s Grim Reaper
Wood pellets, widely labeled as “renewable,” belie their carbon math. Burning trees releases massive CO₂ emissions immediately, while forest regrowth—hampered by fires and blight—takes 40 to 100 years. NPR investigations reveal that wood pellets are dirtier than coal in the short term, polluting rural air for the sake of subsidies.
This isn’t stewardship; it’s subsidized savagery.
### Bioplastics and “Sustainable” Wastes: More Fiction Than Fix
Bioplastics, such as “biodegradable” PLA derived from corn, require industrial facilities to break down and are ineffective in landfills or oceans, where they persist like traditional plastics. They commandeer valuable food acreage, gum up recycling systems, and yield negligible environmental benefits, according to Yale analyses. Simply put, they are feel-good fiction, not a solution.
The use of “sustainable” wastes is limited. Crop residues must be capped at soil-safe levels to prevent erosion; overexploitation risks triggering Dust Bowl–like scenarios. Used cooking oil is scarce, and some importers fake “waste” from palm plantations, exploiting the system for green gold profits.
### The Cost to Biodiversity and Rural Communities
Beyond the numbers, the bioeconomy imperils biodiversity. Monoculture plantations cause an 80% species decline in Amazon hotspots, devastating jaguar populations and habitats. Smallholders are displaced by aggressive land grabs, sparking conflicts without the protections seen in the U.S.
Cronyism dominates this sector: billions in subsidies flow to agricultural giants, mandates squeeze out independent farmers, energy bills rise, and innovation stalls. The climate impact? Negligible compared to fossil fuels, while sidelining more effective solutions like nuclear power and natural gas.
### A Conservative Alternative: Market-Driven, Transparent, and Practical
Conservatives offer clarity: free markets over heavy-handed mandates.
– Mandate technology-neutral policies with rigorous lifecycle analysis—no ILUC dodges or carbon neutrality nonsense.
– Ban high-risk feedstocks, as the EU has done.
– Prioritize audited waste sources over crop-based inputs.
– Promote pragmatic electrification of fleets through electric vehicles.
– Remove bureaucratic hurdles for modular nuclear reactors, expand responsibly fracked natural gas, and upgrade the grid.
– Empower innovators in Iowa, Texas drillers, and others to compete fairly.
Energy dominance requires meritocracy, not interference from bureaucrats thousands of miles away in Brasília.
### Conclusion: COP30’s Bioeconomy—A Hemp-Clad Socialism
COP30’s bioeconomy is little more than hemp-clad socialism: slick marketing masking pricier groceries, barren fields, and illusory emission cuts. As delegates toast in Belém, remember—true prosperity springs from unchained enterprise, not UN utopias.
Reject subsidies. Embrace reliable, affordable power for American families and freedoms. America first—red, white, and verdantly true.
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**About the Author**
Melanie Collette is a policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), specializing in environmental and energy policy, especially in combating offshore wind initiatives and green organizational agendas along the Atlantic coast.
*The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.*
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https://dailycaller.com/2025/11/16/opinion-cop30-green-hype-and-real-world-rip-offs-melanie-collette/
