EU moves to cut back target on biofuel use
By James Kanter International Herald Tribune
Monday, July 7, 2008
Signaling a major retrenchment, European Union legislators on Monday proposed ratcheting
back an ambitious target to raise Europe's use of biofuels.
At the same time, a new report for the British government cast fresh doubt on using
fuels from crops in the fight against climate change.
Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world, setting
a target for 10 percent of transportation fuels to be derived from biofuels by 2020.
But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed
by the EU are contributing to deforestation and helping force up food prices.
"I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning
point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing
in energy and climate change expert at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels.
"It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets."
In the United States, an energy bill passed last year required that 36 billion gallons
of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. But criticism is gaining ground there,
too, with calls to end tax breaks for corn ethanol and other measures to stop so
much American corn - about one-fourth of the crop - being used for biofuels.
Over the past 18 months, studies have shown that the current generation of biofuels
reliant on crops like canola, corn and soybeans helps drive up food prices by using
agricultural land, aggravates deforestation and may be worse for the climate than
conventional oil once the cost of production and transport are taken into account.
The majority of biofuels produced in the world today are extracted from corn in
the United States, sugar in Brazil, and both grain and oil-seed crops in Europe.
Those findings now are pushing Europe into an about-face on biofuels that has gained
momentum in recent days.
"The political tide in Europe is now turning against biofuels, said Adrian
Bebb, an agrofuels coordinator with Friends of the Earth Europe.
Over the weekend, energy ministers gave one of their strongest signs that EU governments
were prepared to back away from the 10 percent target. "We have to decide if
the quota can be kept," the Jochen Homann, secretary of state at the Economics
Ministry, said Saturday in Paris. "It might be changed," he said.
Britain also signaled a new course Monday. Ruth Kelly, the British transport minister,
said the introduction of biofuels should be slowed down, citing a newly released
report warning that current targets for biofuel production could cause a global
rise in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in poverty in the poorest countries.
"Given uncertainty and potential concerns, the government will adopt a more
cautious approach until the evidence is clearer on environmental and social effects
of biofuels," Kelly told the British Parliament.
The Environment Committee of the European Parliament voted Monday to approve the
measure, suggesting it be sent to the full Parliament.
Members of each major political block on the committee called for a much lower target
- 4 percent - and said the measures should be reviewed 2015 before any decision
to ratchet up that target to between 8 percent and 10 percent.
Although the environment committee's vote is not binding, it still will add
to pressure on the European Commission to issue revised proposal, said Delgado,
the Breugel expert.
Under the alternative proposals that the committee voted on, 20 percent of renewable
transport fuels would have to come from feed stocks, like algae, that do not compete
with food for cropland. EU nations also could meet the target by expanding use vehicles
powered by biogas, electricity or hydrogen by 2015. That figure would rise to as
much as 50 percent by 2020. Nations also would have to abide by rules on environmental
and social sustainability.
The European Commission has been seeking to promote policies allowing it to proclaim
global standards for tackling climate-change emissions. The fading luster of biofuels
is one of the factors that threatens its goal of generating 20 percent of energy
from renewable sources by 2020, up from current levels of 8.5 percent now.
Despite the uproar over biofuels, the European Commission has denied that biofuels
are helping push up world food prices by displacing other agriculture and has vowed
to stick by its 10 percent target.
Michael Mann, a spokesman, said Monday that higher food prices had been caused by
increased demand for meat and dairy products, particularly in China and India, two
years of bad harvests around the world, speculation, and by restrictions on exports
of food commodities by some nations.
Mann said that a largely voluntary EU target for using 5.8 percent biofuels in transport
had done little to promote their use, and that binding targets were needed to improve
on the current generation of fuels.
"If you don't have targets, you don't make progress in combating climate
change," Mann said. "You have to start on first-generation biofuels to
get your productive capacity going but move as soon as possible to biofuels that
are not in direct competition with food."
There is disagreement about the role in rising food prices, and some analysts say
that the backlash against biofuels now is going too far. New Energy Finance, a research
group in London, said in May that prices had risen 8 percent for grains and 17 percent
for oils as a result of biofuels policies. It found effects on the price of sugars
had been negligible.
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