ENVIRONMENT: EU Finds Green Reasons Against Biofuels

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Jul 2 2007 (IPS) - European Union officials have signalled that they will ban subsidies for biofuels in cases where their production causes serious environmental damage.

Although the wider use of biofuels, an alternative to conventional sources of energy like oil and gas, has been promoted as one of the key components of an EU strategy to address climate change, staff at the Union&#39s executive arm, the European Commission, have now recognised that their production can be ecologically destructive.

Officials in the Commission&#39s departments of energy and transport are considering the likely main tenets of a law on biofuels that they hope to present to the Union&#39s 27 governments by the end of this year.

This follows a proposal issued by the Commission Jan. 10 that all petrol and diesel used in the EU by 2010 should have a 10 percent biofuel content. The target has been set as part of the Union&#39s efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main &#39greenhouse gas&#39 blamed by scientists for climate change.

But officials have conceded that rather than helping to avert climate change, the production of biofuels can contribute to it, especially if forests are destroyed or wetlands drained in the process.

A public consultation exercise which the Commission undertook on the future of the EU&#39s biofuels policy concluded Jun. 18.

Interested parties were invited to comment on a paper drawn up by the Commission, titled &#39Biofuel issues in the new legislation on the promotion of renewable energy&#39.

It suggested that the EU&#39s governments should not apply tax incentives or other financial sweeteners to biofuels if their production involves the emission of more greenhouse gases than would eventually be saved by using them instead of pure fossil fuels.

Wetlands and peatlands which are situated on high stocks of carbon would be excluded from support, the officials say, as the production of biofuels on such lands involves the large-scale release of carbon dioxide.

"Biofuels are the only alternative fuel for transport at the moment," Ferran Tarradellas, the Commission&#39s energy spokesman, told IPS. "But they have to be produced in a sustainable way. And our strategy for promoting them has to be ambitious, as well as realistic."

Tarradellas added that the Commission wishes to see most biofuels used in Europe produced domestically. Yet the Commission is also considering whether a ban on financing biofuels produced in a harmful way should relate to imports.

In May, the world&#39s leading scientific body on climate change acknowledged that the destruction of peatlands, the main type of wetlands in the world, is a serious problem.

Daniel Mortino, an advisor on climate change to the Uruguayan government and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that the "restoration of drained and degraded peatlands is one of the key lost-cost greenhouse gas mitigation strategies."

The organisation Wetlands International has estimated that 8 percent of the world&#39s total greenhouse gas emissions result from the unsustainable management of tropical peatlands in South-East Asia.

Palm oil, one of the main biofuels increasingly being used in Europe, derives from crops grown on such peatlands, home to endangered species like the Sumatran tiger, the orang-utan, the Sumatran rhinoceros and the Malaysian sunbear. More than 50 percent of all new palm oil plantations in Indonesia are situated on peatlands.

Alex Kaat, spokesman for Wetlands International, welcomed the signals coming from the European Commission. He said that the Commission has examined seriously a call made by the Netherlands on biofuels.

Jacqueline Cramer, the Dutch environment minister, proposed Apr. 27 that financial support for biofuels produced from carbon-rich soils like peatlands should end. The British government is studying, too, the possibility of a certification scheme to ensure that biofuel production respects the environment.

Kaat argued that ecological objectives are not the only factors behind the EU&#39s strategy on biofuels. Instead, the Union&#39s policy-makers are keen to use biofuels to reduce their reliance on energy supplies from Russia and the Middle East and to find new crops that can be cultivated on Europe&#39s farms. "It is really about being less dependent on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Saudi Arabia," Kaat added.

Frauke Thies, a campaigner on energy issues with the Brussels office of Greenpeace said that the European Commission has so far been "very vague" on what savings from greenhouse gases should occur as a result of biofuel production.

The Commission&#39s paper says that the law expected later this year will define "default values" for greenhouse gas savings. These will stipulate the minimum acceptable difference between the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in producing biofuels and the eventual fall in emissions from their use in vehicles. The paper cites 10 percent as a possible minimum saving.

"If they are sustainably produced, biofuels can provide a part of the solution to climate change," Thies added. "But it&#39s important to emphasise that they can only be part of the solution. You won&#39t achieve much in the transport sector unless there is a massive overall improvement in energy efficiency."

Transport currently accounts for one-fifth of the EU&#39s total greenhouse gas emissions. Thies said that she has not yet seen "any convincing studies from the Commission" explaining why it set the 10 percent target for the biofuel content of petrol and diesel.

Biopact, a European organisation promoting biofuels as a contributor to economic development in poor countries, argues, however, that EU policy-makers would be naive in believing a ban on financial support would halt the production of biofuels in an environmentally-destructive way.

"One of the main points being made at the moment is that biofuels could drive deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia," Laurens Rademakers from Biopact told IPS. "But if you want to avoid deforestation, there are much better ways of doing so than boycotting fuel. Producers would just turn to China if there is a boycott by Europe."

Rademarkers argued that the EU should not adopt overly stringent criteria on financing biofuels at this stage. "The best way to avoid deforestation is to make sure that farmers get more income. Poverty is ultimately the key here as poor people often have no alternative to deforestation. We think that the EU must stay in this market and make sure that the fuels are produced in as sustainable a way as possible."

The European Bioethanol Fuel Association said that any criteria introduced must apply to both domestically produced and to imported biofuels.

"We agree that biofuels should be produced in a sustainable way," said Robert Vierhout, the association&#39s general secretary. "But the criteria must be applied on a global way. Otherwise, you will have discrimination between our own producers and those outside of Europe."