RTFO enters into force as NGOs attack biofuels policy
Tue 15 April 2008
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The introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) on April 15th has been greeted by a barrage of claims and counter-claims about the merits of biofuels, and particularly those produced from food crops.
The RTFO establishes an obligation on fuel suppliers to ensure all petrol and diesel sold at UK fuel pumps contains at least 2.5% biofuels content. By 2010, this content is due to rise to 5%.
The Government says that the Obligation is part of the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport and that this measure is expected to save around 2.6 - 3 million tonnes of CO2 by 2010. By 2010, the Government has announced it plans to link reward of certificates to the level of greenhouse gas savings of the fuel; and, by 2011, to implement mandatory sustainability standards.
The National Farmers Union and the Environmental Industries Commission welcomed the introduction of the RTFO saying that biofuels – particularly those produced in the UK – can deliver clear benefits, providing Government policy moves rapidly to require high standards of sustainability for the fuel which comes to market.
Environment groups like the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace countered, however, that sustainability safeguards are weak and inadequate; and that the RTFO will lead to the destruction of rainforest and other valuable eco-systems and wildlife habitats. They also challenge the claim that carbon savings will be realised when the full production life-cycle and displacement impacts of biofuels are taken into account. Many environmental organisations are now calling for a moratorium on a policy designed to speed their introduction.
The development organisation Oxfam also criticised the policy, citing reports linking biofuels to human rights abuses, slave labour, and rising global food prices.
Concern about biofuels has reached the highest levels of Government. The Prime Minister has stated that he wants the issue of high food prices and the link to biofuel production to be on the agenda of the G8 summit in Japan in July. The Government is also actively supporting the strengthening of sustainability criteria within forthcoming European Directives and linking future targets to sustainable supply of feedstock. Government policy has undoubtedly shifted with recent speeches indicating the Government would not support higher targets without sustainability guarantees.
Responding to a question during Prime Ministers' Questions on April 23, Mr Brown said: "I think there is a general recognition that the policy on bioethanol has got to be reviewed."
In response to a parliamentary question on April 22, Ruth Kelly the Transport Secretary said that biofuels currently only account for two per cent of total food production and that other factors are involved in causing the rise in food prices. Ms Kelly said that the Government is not prepared to go beyond the level of 5% (of biofuel content in transport fuels) in 2010 without making sure that there are mandatory sustainability standards in place.
Meanwhile, ENDS reports that two key members of the European Parliament have urged the European Commission to respond to scientists' doubts over the wisdom of increasing the EU's biofuel consumption target.
Green MEP Claude Turmes, rapporteur on the draft EU renewables directive, and socialist Dorette Corbey, rapporteur on a revision of fuel quality rules point to recent sceptical studies by the EU's Joint Research Centre and the European Environment Agency in a letter to the EC President.
The letter falls short, however, of repeating demands for the Commission to withdraw its proposal for biofuels to make up 10 per cent of transport fuel consumption by 2020 but it adds to the intense and growing debate around biofuels and asks the Commission if it "sees reasons to reconsider its proposal".
The 2020 target will be fixed in the renewables directive; biofuel sustainability criteria currently under discussion will appear in both it and the fuel quality law.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) also joined the debate. It said that the EU must suspend its target of raising the share of biofuels in transport to 10% until a more comprehensive scientific study on their environmental risks is carried out.
The Agency's Scientific Committee stressed that the EU's mandatory biofuel quota of 10% is an "overambitious […] experiment, whose unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control".
It therefore "recommends suspending the 10% goal" until a "new, comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels" is carried out, with the aim of setting "a new and more moderate long-term target".
The EEA report also finds that biofuel production for vehicles based on first-generation technologies – produced from food and feed crops – "does not optimally use biomass resources with regard to fossil energy saving and to greenhouse gas reduction".
The report says that technologies for direct heat and electricity generation should be preferred to the use of biofuels for transport because they are more competitive and environmentally effective. It also insists that any biomass utilisation must go hand-in-hand with energy efficiency improvements which, it says, is not yet often the case. (See EurActiv website form more on the EEA report.)
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