EU still committed to biofuel targets

The EU today insisted it will stick with compulsory targets for biofuel use despite growing unease over their ecological benefits.

The goal of biofuels making up at least 10% of energy used by the EU’s huge transportation sector by 2020 will remain because voluntary agreements have failed miserably so far, a spokesman said.

“If you don’t have targets, you don’t make progress” in combating climate change, he said.

The European Commission denied biofuels were helping push up world food prices by displacing other agriculture.

It said higher prices were caused by increased demand for meat and dairy products, particularly in China and India, bad weather in 2006 around the world and speculation in the price of grains and other crops.

Aid officials and food policy experts have urged Europe and the US to reconsider their biofuel policies.

John Holmes, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, singled out Somalia, Ethiopia and western African countries such as Guinea as being the worst hit by food shortages and rising prices.

Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Europe and the US must “correct political errors” made when they gave approval to an increased production of biofuels without properly researching the effects on food supplies.

The Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel said in a report today that biofuels do not contribute to energy security, do not achieve cheap cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases and trigger higher food prices worldwide.

In recent weeks, European Parliament members, Oxfam, Greenpeace and others have all questioned the merit of biofuel targets.

But the EU spokesman shrugged off claims that biofuel production triggers higher food costs and said the it would go ahead with plans to expand the sector.

He said there was “good evidence” biofuel production does not boost European food prices “to a significant extent”, because no food crops are used for fuel in the EU.

“We think that our best contribution can be to make a system that is actually sustainable, that makes us lead by example.”

The biofuels target is part of an ambitious climate change package the 27 EU leaders embraced last year.

EU governments are negotiating the details of the package they hope to enact by the end of the year. The overall aim is for the EU to draw 20% of all its energy from renewable sources by 2020 – up from 8.5% now.

Biofuels may reduce dependence on oil, but will actually cost more in the long-run, the Bruegel think tank said.

Also, while sugar cane-based ethanol can reduce emissions by 90% compared to petrol, corn-based ethanol only saves 30% of emissions, it said. It argued that when farmers prepare their fields to grow more biofuel crops, more carbon is produced.