EU biofuel sustainability criteria too weak, say green groups
Documents outlining proposed sustainability criteria for biofuels currently under consideration by European officials show that member states are planning to apply "only cosmetic changes" to existing criteria, according to environmental groups.
Although the European Commission has proposed a mandatory target of ten per cent of all transport fuels to be made from biofuels by 2020, such alternative fuel sources have been subject to serious criticism by environmental groups, the United Nations food programme and the UK's chief scientific advisor.
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They warn that far from being an ally in the battle against climate change, biofuels could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to new levels of hunger around the world as fuels compete with food.
The pressure eventually resulted in the European Commission touting the establishment of strict sustainability criteria for biofuels.
But green groups say that documents forming the basis of current discussions between member states on possible criteria remain "very weak."
"It's time the EU were brave enough to admit that currently proposed biofuels standards and targets are unacceptable," said Ariel Brunner, agriculture policy officer for BirdLife International.
Green groups BirdLife International, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace have written to senior government officials from all 27 EU countries urging them to reject what they currently regard as weak proposals for biofuels standards.
In particular, the groups are concerned that in the documents they have seen there seems to be little consideration of the negative impacts of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity as a result of land-use changes.
Such land-use changes could mean the transformation of great carbon sinks such as rainforests or peat-bogs into corn or palm-oil plantations.
"The substantial impacts of indirect effects render any criteria meaningless if these significant impacts are not taken into account," writes John Hontelez, the secretary-general of the EEB, in the letter to member states.
"Specifically, an emissions threshold that does not take into account direct and indirect land-use change ignores the majority of emissions arising from biofuels production."
"These negotiations show that the EU is prepared to dress biofuels up as green when in fact they are instead causing widespread environmental damage," said Adrian Bebb, a campaigner on biofuels with Friends of the Earth Europe, adding: "Using crops to feed cars instead of people is a recipe for disaster."
Meanwhile, European biofuels producers are facing bigger problems in their industry than criticism about environmental and social sustainability.
According to the European Bioethanol Fuel Association (EBIO), bioethanol production dropped from two years of growth of over 70 percent in 2005 and 2006 to just 13.5 percent.
The trade association blames high feedstock prices and cheap bioethanol from Brazil.
High cereal prices have meant that production costs have gone up to a level that made bioethanol no longer profitable. In the last year, a number of companies decided either to stop operating temporarily or to delay the start up of new plants, EBIO said.
According to an investigation by a journal of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry, the largest bioethanol producer in Europe has shut down a plant in Salamanca, while German firm Verbio reported a quarter-of-a-billion euro loss last year (€254.5 million).