Biofuels targets face cross-party criticism in Brussels
LEIGH PHILLIPS
28.05.2008 @ 18:02 CET
International opposition to biofuels has seen MEPs from both the Greens and the centre-right European Peoples' Party call for the softening or even scrapping of proposals to increase the use of the controversial energy source in European transport.
Luxembourg Green MEP Claude Turmes - responsible for shepherding the European Commission's proposed directive on renewable energy through the European Parliament - has advised the industry, research and energy committee to ditch the commission's targets entirely.
"The 10 percent target on biofuels is more a political than a scientific target," said Mr Turmes. "This target must be scrapped."
EU leaders last spring agreed that the EU should increase the use of biofuels in transport fuel to 10 percent by 2020, up from a planned 5.75 percent target to be achieved by 2010, but many MEPs are opposed to the goal.
"There is overwhelming evidence to drop the mandatory ten percent target," reads Mr Turmes' report.
The MEP wants a moratorium on biofuels promotion until sustainability criteria have been developed.
The conservatives group in parliament has until now been thought to broadly support the proposals, but in his own report on biofuels sustainability criteria for the environment committee, Swedish centre-right MEP Anders Wijkman, called for the target to be reduced.
"Given the many unknowns today, the responsible way to go forward seems to be to reverse the decision about the ten percent renewable target and, instead, go for a lower target – such as eight percent," his report reads.
Although Mr Wijkman is critical of biofuels, he told a press conference on Tuesday (27 May): "We need a target to tell the investors that there is a market," so that supposedly more sustainable second and third generation biofuels, such as those derived from agricultural waste or algae, can win the investment necessary to be developed.
Environmental campaigners largely welcomed the reports, while noting that the Wijkman study did not go far enough.
"An eight per cent target will cause almost as much damage as a 10 per cent target. Pushing up food prices is causing hunger and that fact is inescapable," said Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory in a statement.
"Land use for agrofuels is forcing small farmers and indigenous peoples off their lands, causing poverty and hunger," said Sofia Monsalve Suarez of Food-First Information and Action Network, an international human rights organisation.
Major farming organisations however deplored the MEPs' findings, however.
"Road transport will represent 90 percent of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions before 2010, it is therefore crucial to use biofuels which reduce these emissions," declared Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of European farming association COPA-COGECA.
Wind, solar, geothermal
The Turmes report addressed all forms of renewable energy. The biofuels target is part of a wider plan to provide 20 percent of all energy in the bloc from renewable sources, up from the current level of 8.5 percent.
The MEP found that stronger mechanisms than in the commission's initial proposals were needed to encourage the switch to other forms of renewable energy such as solar photovoltaics, wind power, and geothermal power, and called for the development of achievable actions on the road to 2020.
"The EU commitment towards 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020 can only be achieved by reinforcing the binding nature of the target and clarifying the intermediate steps towards it," he said.
"The commission must be empowered to reject weak national action plans and financially reward or penalise member states that overachieve or fail to deliver."
The report also rejected proposals from energy producers and energy traders for an EU-wide market in renewables certificate trading as a mechanism to encourage renewables uptake, preferring instead support for national regulatory schemes such as the feed-in tariff in Germany.
Under a feed-in tariff regime, electricity utilities are obliged to buy renewable electricity at above market rates set by the government.
The reports from the two MEPs are the opening salvoes in parliament's handling of the European Commission's proposals. A vote by plenary is not expected before September.
