Nicosia, 17/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - Responding to an attack by the NGO Oxfam against the EU policy on biofuels, the Commission spoke out clearly on Monday 17 September.
“It is wrong to believe that we are pushing food-based biofuels. In our upcoming proposal for new legislation, we do exactly the contrary. We limit them to the current consumption level, that is 5% up to 2020”, Commissioners Connie Hedegaard (Climate) and Gunter Oettinger (Energy) said on Monday, in a press release responding to an Oxfam report.
In a document that was published the day of the informal meeting of European energy ministers in Nicosia - meeting at which Oettinger was also present - the NGO Oxfam criticised the “dramatic” social and environmental impacts across the world of the European policy on biofuels. By setting the objective of a 20% renewable energy share, particularly averaging an objective of 10% of renewables - which could be biofuels - in the transport sector, the EU has contributed to setting off a world rush towards food-based fuel, which has provoked deforestation, shortages and price hikes, explains the report entitled “The seeds of hunger”. The Commission is currently in the process of finalising its legislative text aiming to take account of the impact of indirect land use change (ILUC) on greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels. (EH/transl.fl)