Brussels, 18/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Associations of crop-based biofuel producers are slamming the new sustainability rules proposed by the Commission.
“About-turn by EU Commission on biofuels policy set to decimate biofuels industry in the midst of the European economic crisis” - such is the headline of a press release published on 17 October by the EU agricultural organisations (COPA-COGECA), the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), the federation of the vegetable oil industry (FEDIOL), ePURE representing the interests of European renewable ethanol producers, and COCERAL, the European association of the cereals and oilseeds trade.
The lobbies of the biofuels industry believe that placing a cap on first generation biofuel contribution at 5% of final transport energy consumption will destroy their whole sector, including the agricultural production chain, and thousands of job losses for an industry that has already made €14 billion in investment and provided 100,000 jobs.
The proposal by the European Commission - which for the very first time takes account of greenhouse gas emissions linked to indirect land use change (ILUC) to restrict cropland being converted into land used for the production of biofuels (see EUROPE 10712) - is, the lobbies say, based on “unfounded and immature ILUC science”. “Any change in policy must safeguard the investments made and ongoing towards fulfilling the Commission's initial objectives of 10% of renewable energy for transport production in the EU”, they stress.
Via Campesina recommends quite simply banning biofuels. The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) is of the view that the European Commission is once again giving way to the weight of the lobbies. Given the negative effects of first generation biofuels, ECVC states, there should quite simply be a ban on them. Proposals on taking ILUC into account in the legislation on biofuels were greatly emptied of their initial meaning, ECVC states. Although the taking into account of ILUC for calculating greenhouse gas emissions is a major breakthrough that will validate the negative impact on climate change of biofuels produced from food crops, it will also be necessary, in the same aim, to prevent the inclusion of biofuels in fuels as soon as possible. The abolition of all forms of subsidies is necessary in the near future, as industrialists have already reached economic profitability of their production installations, ECVC states, recalling the serious consequences of biofuels (deforestation and displacement of people, the taking over of food producing land in the southern countries, reduction of biodiversity, crises in the production of food raw materials, and a rise in the importation of proteins for animal feed. (EH/LC/transl.jl)