EU Faces Policy Juggle in Push for Biofuels

The European Union is juggling policy priorities ranging from farming to trade as it prepares for a surge in the use of plant-based fuels, a cornerstone of the bloc’s ambitious target for fighting climate change.

The 27-nation EU agreed in March that biofuels should make up at least 10 percent of vehicle fuels by 2020.
That goal, along with stricter rules for fuel quality and carbon emissions from cars, means a huge increase in production and probably imports of fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol.

Working out how to hit the target raises a host of questions for EU policy makers.

Should the fuels be homegrown or largely imported? Will they help or hurt the environment in the bloc and outside it? Should tariffs be lowered to facilitate trade? How will energy crops affect food supplies in poor countries?

“Our aim must be to develop an EU biofuels policy which meets our objectives on security of supply and climate change, while ensuring sustainable development,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is expected to say at a biofuels conference on Thursday.

“What we must not do is pursue a policy which simply shifts environmental problems from one sector to another, or from one continent to another.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country is a major biofuels producer, will attend the conference.

Environmentalists are cautiously supportive of the EU’s efforts but have zeroed in on the potential for biofuels to create more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.

“Sustainable biofuels can be part of the solution, but unsustainable biofuels are even worse for the environment than not producing them,” said Frauke Thies, a renewable energy expert at environmental group Greenpeace.

Planet Ark