A study undertaken by the European Commission into the potential for biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport has found that reductions can be made as long as biofuels are produced in small quantities, but after a certain point, the indirect effects of growing biofuel crops cause galloping increases in emissions.
The findings help put the concept of ‘indirect land-use change’ on the EU’s political map, and further question the viability of the EU’s 10% renewable fuels target for transport.
The Commission’s trade department has looked at the unintended consequences of biofuels production. It says 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 future crops have to be grown on forest, grassland or peatlands, thereby leading to an indirect increase in climate-changing emissions.
The study does not identify this tipping point, but its other findings suggest it is around 5%. It says a rise in biofuels use from 4.6% to 6.6% would ‘increase sharply the average emissions’. With the EU saying 10% of all transport fuels have to come from renewable sources by 2020, and biofuels highly likely to represent the majority, a tipping point around 5% would seriously undermine the idea that EU biofuels policy can contribute to the fight against climate change.
While the ‘tipping point’ finding is a powerful one, criticisms of the assumptions used in the Commission study paint an even bleaker picture for the idea of biofuels having a big role in fighting climate change. 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% of the 10% renewable target.
T&E policy officer Nuša Urbančič said, ‘The 5.6% 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% target is to be achieved, it would be safer to assume that biofuels will make up at least 7%.’
Another report published earlier this month by the French energy agency ADEME suggests the environmental benefits from biofuels might be entirely cancelled out once indirect land-use impacts are taken into consideration. An official from the agency told the French newspaper Le Monde ‘one should not rely on biofuels to reduce the CO 2 emissions from transport’.
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 has described the action as ‘premature’, but the failure to produce information that should be in the public domain has been criticised by a number of MEPs.
