A study undertaken by the European Commission has revealed that the biofuels industry has limited ability to cut transport emissions.
According to Transport & Environment (T&E), the study undertaken by the Commission’s Trade Department identifies a ‘tipping point’ at which the indirect affects of the production of biofuels cause emissions to rise. Only at small scale production can biofuels actually reduce emissions compared to conventional fossil fuels.
The study helps to confirm fears that biofuel production can have ‘indirect’ environmental affects which may counter any environmental benefits. The study shows that greenhouse gas savings are genuine where biofuel crops can be grown on ‘spare land’. But beyond a certain ‘tipping point’, such available land is used up, so that biofuel crops have to be grown on land currently occupied by natural forest, grassland or peatland, there is a increase in climate-changing emissions.
Although the study does not identify this tipping point, its other findings suggest it is around 5 per cent, the independent transport policy watchdog, T&E reports. The findings says a rise in biofuels use from 4.6 per cent to 6.6 per cent would ‘increase sharply the average emissions’. With an EU target of 10 per cent of all transport fuels to come from renewable sources by 2020, and with biofuels highly likely to represent the majority of this, the EU seems to be on track to fail in its bid to cut transport emissions.
While the ‘tipping point’ finding already paints a bleak picture for the role of biofuels in cutting transport emissions, critics say the study exaggerates the contribution of bioethanol, regarded as the cleanest of the available biofuels, and it works on the basis that biofuels will make up only 5.6 per cent of the 10 per cent renewable target.
T&E policy officer Nuša Urbančič said: “The 5.6 per cent figure is based on a loose assumption that one fifth of all new cars sold in 2020 will be electric – the car industry itself would acknowledge that this is hopelessly optimistic. If the 10 per cent target is to be achieved, it would be safer to assume that biofuels will make up at least 7 per cent.”
Last month, T&E and three other environmental organisations started legal proceedings against the Commission for failing to release documentation confirming the negative effects of indirect land-use change. The Commission described the action as ‘premature’, but the failure to release 140 documents has been criticised by a number of MEPs.
