Dutch agency and leading UK scientist call for reconsideration of biofuels targets
Tue 25 March 2008
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The Dutch environmental assessment agency, MNP, has called on the EU to reconsider the target to increase the share of biofuels in transport fuels by 10 per cent by 2020. Meanwhile, the UK Government's top environment scientist has also called for a delay in the Government's biofuels programme.
The agency, which is funded by the Dutch Government, concluded that the potential for biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is quite low. It also suggests that the Commission's biofuels policies may be hindering the development of alternatives to biofuels, including electric cars, hybrids and fuel cell cars.
The agency’s report says that the 20–30m hectares of European Union (EU) land needed to produce enough crops to turn into the 35m tonnes of oil equivalent biofuels required to meet the 10% target “is not likely to become available within Europe”, even if the EU’s agricultural sector were fully liberalised. There is also no certainty that enough biofuels could be imported to meet any shortfall in domestic production.
According to the report, the European Commission’s sustainability criteria for biofuels — greenhouse gas emissions in the whole production chain at least 35% lower than from conventional fuels — are not likely to be met in the real world. “Even the most carefully selected default values will not cover all negative side effects of biofuel production. Global displacement effects should play a more important role in the sustainability criteria than is currently the case in the proposal for a renewables directive.”
The MNP report concludes that 'global displacement effects' should feature more prominently in the EU's sustainability criteria. It also warns of inevitable rises in food prices driven by the increased demand for biofuels. The EU should include mechanisms in its biofuel promotion policies to pay for biodiversity protection and support food importing regions, it adds.
Meanwhile, Robert Watson, chief scientist at the UK's Department for the Environment, called on ministers to postpone the introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), scheduled for April 1, until the Government-commissioned review into the indirect effects of biofuels production has been completed. (The RFA is leading this study on behalf of the Government - see associated link.)
(Reported in the Financial Times:) “It would obviously be totally insane if we had a policy to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of biofuels that’s actually leading to an increase in the greenhouse gases from biofuels,” Prof Watson told the BBC.
Responding to Robert Watson - and Sir David King the former Government chief scientist who expressed agreement with Prof Watson's remarks - the EC's energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas (writing in The Guardian) said that the Commission strongly disagrees with the assumption that the overall environmental effect of existing biofuel policy is negative. He noted that the European Commission is a leading voice in calls for the establishment of sustainability criteria.
The new directive for renewable energy sources will call for the promotion of only sustainable biofuels; those that save at least 35% CO2 compared to the oil that would otherwise be consumed. At the same time, he added, the directive will include robust sustainability standards to prevent damaging land-use change and the destruction of rainforests.
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