European Biofuels Vote Delivers ‘Desperately Weak Compromise’

Euro­pean Bio­fu­els Vote Deliv­ers ‘Des­per­ate­ly Weak Compromise’

- by Karl Math­iesen, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2013. Source: The Guardian

The Euro­pean par­lia­ment has deliv­ered a “des­per­ate­ly weak com­pro­mise” on the future of bio­fu­els in Europe that indus­try says will “cur­tail jobs and investment”.

In a tight vote on the use of bio­fu­els in trans­port fuel, the par­lia­ment approved a 6% cap on the con­tri­bu­tion of bio­fu­els to Europe’s renew­able trans­port ener­gy tar­get of 10% by 2020.

The pol­i­cy of replac­ing petrol and diesel for cars and oth­er vehi­cles stems from efforts to reduce car­bon emis­sions from Europe’s trans­port sec­tor. But crit­ics argue that while bio­fu­els can look green, they come with unin­tend­ed con­se­quences. Grow­ing bio­fu­el crops dis­places food crops, push­ing up food prices, and some bio­fu­els can actu­al­ly lead to high­er car­bon emis­sions than fos­sil fuels when changes in land use are ful­ly account­ed for.

The 6% cap vot­ed for by MEPs rep­re­sents an increase on the cur­rent fig­ure of 4.5%. They also vot­ed to recog­nise the link between bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion and the destruc­tion of forests and oth­er land­scapes, but not until 2020. And backed a 2.5% tar­get for so-called sec­ond gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els — made from non-food sources such as agri­cul­tur­al waste, sewage and algae.

The Euro­pean par­lia­men­t’s envi­ron­ment, pub­lic health and food safe­ty com­mit­tee had rec­om­mend­ed a 5.5% cap. French MEP Corinne Lep­age, who had sup­port­ed the low­er cap, said the 6% agree­ment was a suc­cess and would dri­ve inno­va­tion in the bio­fu­els sec­tor and lead to the cre­ation of clean­er bio­fu­els from non-food sources.

“I wel­come the par­lia­ment vote in favour of cor­rect account­ing of green­house gas emis­sions includ­ing indi­rect land use change and in favour of a rea­son­able cap on first gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els. This is an impor­tant sig­nal that sup­port should be focused on advanced bio­fu­els from 2020,” said Lepage.

A move to start nego­ti­a­tions with the Euro­pean coun­cil — the body made up of Euro­pean heads of gov­ern­ment — on the leg­is­la­tion failed to pass by one vote. This meant the issue will require a sec­ond read­ing and may not progress fur­ther until after next year’s Euro­pean elec­tions in May.

From 2020, the assess­ment of bio­fu­els will recog­nise the cli­mate impact caused by switch­ing mil­lions of hectares of crops from food to bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion. Inde­pen­dent stud­ies have shown that the sub­sidy-dri­ven demand for food-based bio­fu­els dri­ves farm­ers (typ­i­cal­ly in devel­op­ing coun­tries) to clear forests and oth­er car­bon seques­ter­ing land­scapes in order to sat­is­fy Europe’s car owners.

This process is known as indi­rect land use change (iLUC). When the car­bon impact of defor­esta­tion is tak­en into account, fuels pro­duced from food sources such as palm, soy and rape­seed oil have a net car­bon foot­print that is heav­ier than every­day fos­sil fuels.

The bio­fu­els indus­try has dis­put­ed the sci­ence behind iLUC, say­ing it is still unproven and should not form the basis of Euro­pean policy.

“We are dis­ap­point­ed with the deci­sion to keep ILUC fac­tors as part of the Euro­pean approach to bio­fu­els. It is pre­ma­ture to ask for account­ing post 2020 know­ing that the sci­ence will only be reviewed in 2016,” said Rob Vier­hout, the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of indus­try group ePure.

Vier­holt said the leg­is­la­tion would desta­bilise the indus­try and lead to uncertainty.

“It is dis­ap­point­ing to see that the Euro­pean par­lia­ment has decid­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the mar­ket for con­ven­tion­al bio­fu­els in Europe.”

Green groups said that the high­er fig­ure would lead to more envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems. Rob­bie Blake, a cam­paign­er for Friends of the Earth, said the result meant bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion from food sources would con­tin­ue to rise caus­ing fur­ther defor­esta­tion, cli­mate change and food shortages.

“Under intense pres­sure from a sub­sidy-hun­gry indus­try, MEPs have at the last minute backed out of a more mean­ing­ful reform of Europe’s fail­ing bio­fu­els pol­i­cy,” he said.

Nuša Urbančič, clean fuels man­ag­er at envi­ron­men­tal NGO Trans­port and Envi­ron­ment said that because iLUC sci­ence would not be adopt­ed until 2020: “Euro­peans will have to keep pay­ing for anoth­er sev­en years for bio­fu­els that pol­lute more than the fos­sil fuels they are sup­posed to replace.”

Nur Hiday­ati, head of cam­paigns for WALHI/Friends of the Earth Indone­sia, said: “The peo­ple of Indone­sia will be dis­ap­point­ed to hear that the Euro­pean par­lia­ment has failed to agree any mean­ing­ful action to reduce Europe’s demand for palm oil, which is dri­ving defor­esta­tion and con­flict in our country.”