The European Parliament’s environment committee showed ambition, in Strasbourg on Monday 23 October, on the EU’s 2030 renewable energy targets when it adopted its opinion on the renewable energy directive and on the substance of the section of the sustainability of agro-fuels that lies within its area of competence.
Voting (by a wafer-thin majority of 32 to 29, with 4 abstentions) to endorse the position of rapporteur Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), the committee called on the EU to increase the percentage of renewables in the EU’s gross final consumption of energy to at least 35% by 2030. It also voted to reintroduce binding national targets in order to achieve the European goal. The European Commission proposed only to raise the European objective to at least 27%, without national targets.
On agro-fuels, the committee called for first generation biofuels produced from food crops, which are a contributory factor in deforestation, to be phased out by 2030 and for those produced from palm oil to be banned from 2021. MEPs, at the same time, encourage the development of cleaner agro-fuels.
The MEPs defined the sustainability criteria for biofuels, bioliquids and the biomass in order to reduce the risk of unsustainable use being made of forest biomass under the guise of renewable energy.
NGOs critical of forest biomass subsidies. Environmental NGOs gave a mixed reception to a vote described as “a first step in the right direction” in that it urged stronger commitment by the EU to getting rid of agro-fuels which have a damaging impact on the climate.
The NGOs regret, however, that the committee did not call for an end to the increasing use of forests for energy purposes, going as far as BirdLife International in lamenting that MEPs had weakened the already very weak sustainability criteria proposed by the European Commission for the forest biomass.
WWF regretted that MEPs had “ignored the science to allow subsidies to bad bioenergy”, and voted for continued subsidies to burning trees and stumps for energy. “MEPs have decided that the best way to tackle climate change is to burn more trees”, it regrets, bemoaning a defeat for science, the climate and forests and the EU’s reputation on climate change.
The European Parliament's industry committee, which is the competent committee on the energy package, of which revision of this directive forms part, will vote on 28 November. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)