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Ottawa – A new report by a Canadian nongovernmental organization reveals the relationship between the climate and oil crises, corporate power, and new technologies could turn the quest for biomass control and the green economy into a “Greed Economy.” As global corporations ready themselves for a post-petroleum world, a green economy will be centered on exploiting biomass (food and fiber crops, plant oils, algae, grasses, forest residues, etc.). Supporters of the post-petroleum future involve many of the world’s largest, and most powerful corporations and governments, all touting new technologies – including genomics, nanotechnology and synthetic biology – for transforming biomass into high-value products. The 60-page report, Who Will Control the Green Economy? (pdf), released in December by the Ottawa-based international NGO Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Conservation (ETC Group), outlines how the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), scheduled for June 20-22. 2012 in Brazil, is helping highlight the growing emphasis on a green economy, the ushering in of an era of sustainable development, but alarmingly notes the movement could be hijacked by corporate motives, stating

The gravitational pull of biomass is creating new constellations of corporate convergence across diverse industry sectors.

The report issues a warning on how the world’s largest companies are riding on the coattails of this growing “Green Economy” by shrewdly concentrating corporate power and releasing privately held technologies, without consultation, into communities unprepared for the associated impacts.