EU to review targets on biofuels in light of detrimental effects

THE EU will have to review its plan to have 10% of its transport fuel from biofuels by 2020 after warnings of huge social and environmental side effects.

The Taoiseach and other EU member state leaders agreed just months ago to have biofuels play a significant role in reducing CO2 emissions. But groups like Oxfam and the OECD say the decision is pushing up food prices, destroying rain forests and will do little to fight climate change.

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: “We have seen that the environmental problems caused by biofuels and also the social problems are bigger than we thought they were. So we have to move very carefully.

“We have to have criteria for sustainability, including social and environmental issues, because there are some benefits from biofuels,” he said in a BBC interview.

A scheme to certify that biofuels meet the necessary criteria would have to be introduced by the EU to ensure their use did not result in destruction of livelihoods or the environment, as is happening with palm oil in Indonesia, he said.

Massive lobbying by the car industry and by farmers pushed biofuels forward as a way of reducing the emissions from transport, which account for a growing proportion of CO2 emissions throughout the world.

Germany, Italy and France pushed to ensure their car manufacturers would not be forced to take all the responsibility for creating engines and car design to meet the new greener standards.

Just before Christmas it was agreed that part of the reduction would be achieved by increasing the amount of biofuels that would be used by transport.

The EU agreed that the 10% target must be met, but there was no reference to standards on the social or human impact.

Mr Dimas has said that such standards must be drawn up and adhered to and it is expected that they could be included in the legislation due to be published next Wednesday.

With the US also agreeing to push biofuels, developing countries have rushed to fill the demand. Oxfam says an area more than 10 times the size of France could be in production of biofuels within 20 years in India, Brazil, southern Africa and Indonesia.

The UN estimated that 60 million people worldwide face clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations.

But Loek Boonekamp, an agro-food expert with the OECD in Paris, warned yesterday that the vested interests in the biofuel industry would make it very difficult to change policies.