Members of the European Parliament Environment Committee (ENVI) yesterday (11 July) approved draft legal measures to cap biofuel production from ‘traditional’ food crops, and accelerate the switchover to a ‘new generation’ of biofuel sources, such as seaweed and waste.

The decision comes just weeks after the House of Commons International Development Committee (IDC) found that the increasing use of biofuels is undermining food security by forcing up the price of food crops.

ENVI decided cap food-sourced biofuel after it was found that freeing up land to produce food crops was leading to deforestation, over-farming and other ‘indirect land use change’ (ILUC). This, in turn, was found to be increasing greenhouse gas emissions – thus cancelling out the ‘beneficial effects of using biofuels’ over traditional fossil fuels.

Further, ENVI found that ‘advanced biofuels’, such as those from seaweed, organic wastes and residues are ‘currently not commercially available in large quantities, in part due to competition for public subsidies with established food crop based biofuel technologies’.

As such, MEPs voted for the following draft legal measures:

• biofuels produced from food and energy crops must not exceed 5.5 per cent of total energy consumption for transport purposes by 2020;
• advanced biofuels produced from other sources, such as seaweed or certain types of waste, must account for ‘no less than two per cent of consumption’ by 2020;
• the share of advanced biofuels ‘should not be achieved at the cost of depriving other industries of raw materials, destabilising EU waste policy, overexploiting forests or reducing biodiversity’;
• emissions arising from ILUC factors should be included when calculating official emissions impacts;
• member states must ensure that renewable energy sources account for at least 10 per cent of transport fuel use by 2020; and
• electricity produced from renewable sources should account for two per cent of total transport energy consumption by 2020.

The decision was reached after 42 MEPs voted for the measure, with 26 opposing and one abstention.

‘Timid step in the right direction’

Speaking after the vote, Corinne Lepage, rapporteur for the biofuel proposals said: “I welcome the Environment Committee's decision to tackle the issue of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from indirect land use change by including them in the legislation, to cap first-generation agri-fuels and to promote advanced ones.”

The decision has been largely welcomed by environmentalists, but Friends of the Earth Biofuels Campaigner Kenneth Richter commented: "The committee has taken a timid step in the right direction by reforming EU biofuels policy – including the decision to penalise biofuels that result in significant greenhouse gas emissions through deforestation.

"But it's disappointing that a course hasn't been set to phase out the use of food crops for fuel – instead MEPs have chosen to cap it at a level that is even higher than current use.”

Richter added that it was “crucial” that the reforms are not “watered down any further” when they are put to a plenary vote in Strasbourg in September. However, Lepage said she thinks that industry “must be given time to adapt” and, as such, will “propose a compromise to this end in plenary session”.

Limiting food-based crops ‘will damage biofuels industry’

Some parts of the energy industry however, have voiced concern with the proposals, with the Renewable Energy Association (REA) saying that limiting the use of food-based sources will ‘damage a significant part of the current investment in the UK biofuels industry and raise the costs of meeting renewable energy and climate change objectives’.

REA Head of Renewable Transport Clare Wenner said: “[The] vote is very disappointing for so much of the UK biofuels industry. It will ensure that fossil fuels continue to dominate transport for the foreseeable future, and it will reduce the stimulus for investments in improving agricultural yields and practices.

“These final proposals are a conceptually flawed attempt to force European biofuel developers to pay for the assumed emissions of other industries in other regions of the world. They will put committed investments in agricultural biofuels and future investments in advanced biofuels at extreme risk across Europe – as well as all the jobs that go with them. So-called green campaigners have well and truly shot themselves in the foot with this pyrrhic victory.”

Read the proposals for the biofuels directive or find out more about biofuels in Resource 52.