Brussels, 21/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - It is high time that the environment committee of the European Parliament leads the way relating to the proposed ILUC directive. That directive, on indirect land use change, concerns the taking into account, in the production of biofuels, of the indirect impact of land use change. This is a phenomenon that can negate greenhouse gas emissions savings from biofuels promoted via the renewable energy directive and the fuel quality directive, the environmental NGO Birdlife warned on Thursday 20 June. The appeal was made the day following the vote in the parliamentary committee on energy on this dossier (see previous article), that the NGO considers disappointing, like that of the four other parliamentary committees (INTA, AGRI, ITRE and REGI committees) which, the same week, for the most part weakened the initial European Commission proposal.
In its proposal, the Commission plans to place a 5% cap on the share of conventional biofuels used to achieve the 10% target of renewable energy in transport by 2020 in order to cut in half the quantity of subsidised biofuels which compete with food production. The various parliamentary committees all recommend that the 5% cap should be raised and the agriculture committee goes as far as to request authorisation for the use of at least 8% of first generation fuels in order to attain that objective, which is in total contradiction with its own food safety principles.
Trees Robijns, a Birdlife Europe expert on EU agricultural policy and bioenergy, said: “The opinions of these committees are just inexplicable to the public. MEPs do not want to support the sustainable renewables with a long-term future but want to continue giving billions of euros to those biofuels that are not saving emissions and are causing deforestation, land grabs and hunger in the world”. On the subject of ILUC reports to be provided by member states, the committee votes are more mixed. Robijns went on to add: “We need the environment committee to set the record straight and ensure that the support goes to those renewables that actually contribute to the objective of saving GHG emissions and do not have negative consequences for the environment and people”. In Council, the dossier is now in a state of stalemate, and the vote by the Parliament in plenary session is due this autumn (see EUROPE 10870). (AN/transl.jl)