Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel will be a key part of the international response to the rising price of oil, its potential depletion and the need to provide clean energy in a carbon-managed world. While biofuels have been held up by many nations as viable, achievable, and desirable solutions to energy, security and climate challenges, the potential costs of a large scale shift to renewable biofuels include local impacts to land, water, and air quality, and global impacts associated with energy balance, greenhouse gas emissions, and unwanted effects on the price of food. The agricultural production capacity of the Americas, its global production leadership, and currently evolving trade relationships, place the region at center stage in the challenging drama of developing biofuels and trading policies that provide fuel where it is needed while providing greenhouse gas policy leadership for this new energy system.

This conference will give leaders in the sciences, public affairs and business an opportunity to understand the critical issues of biofuel production, carbon management and trade as part of an interlocking whole. Through presentations and discussion, we will enhance the capacity of leaders to develop policies built on sound science which can appeal across national and sector boundaries. The ultimate goal of this conference is to lay the groundwork for international partnerships between public and private leaders toward the development of innovative research, managerial, and policy solutions to these issues throughout the Americas.

We anticipate that the integrative leadership approach of this conference will be important to the preparation for the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the continuation of multilateral and bilateral biofuels trade negotiations, and the furthering of current North/South research and development collaborations in the region.

We urge you to be part of this project in bringing together multiple points of view and leading the way to real solutions for the Americas and the world.

Join us in Minnesota on Oct. 22 and 23, 2007.
The Steering Committee

Co-Chairs: