The EU focus on biofuels will not halt the advance of climate change and could also drive the developing world famine and debt.

Under regulations laid down by EU officials, all member states have pledged to derive ten per cent of their transport fuel usage from sustainable biofuels and other renewable sources by 2020.

But the rising demand for this type of fuel is harming the environment more than it is helping, according to analysts at ActionAid.

The fuel source is estimated by the charity group to have been responsible for at least 30 per cent of the global spike in food prices which occurred in 2008, which in turn is though to have driven 30 million people into hunger and 100 million to poverty.

And the non-profit body's campaign against biofuels has been supported by Friends of the Earth, which said that growing them is not an effective way of reducing carbon output.

"Biofuels don't actually save gas emissions - in many cases they do the opposite," said the organisation's biofuels campaigner Kenneth Richter. "They are increasing our raw emissions, rather than reducing them."