Influential EU committee votes to phase out crop-based fuels
An influential panel of lawmakers on Monday voted to phase out crop-based biofuels over the next 13 years and to ban biofuels and bioliquids sourced from palm oil by 2021.
The EU Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), whose vote is not binding, passed an amendment that would scale down crop-based biofuels in transportation from 7% in 2021 to 0% by 2030.
It also passed an amendment to scale up the overall share of renewable energy in the EU mix to 35% by 2030 and also setting mandatory national targets.
The original proposal by the EU Commission had envisaged a reduction of crop-based biofuels to 3.8% over the same timeframe and set an aggregate renewable energy target of 27%.
“We have to prevent food and feed crop biofuels from displacing food production and having a negative climate impact, that may even exceed fossil fuel emissions,” said lead MEP Bas Eickhout, who was steering the legislation through committee stage.
The European ethanol association ePURE said the vote, which was tight at 32 votes in favour, 29 against and four abstentions, took a “bad proposal from the European Commission and makes it even worse”.
“On the one hand, they have adopted a lofty ambition to decrease the carbon intensity of transport fuels; on the other hand, they are banning European crop-based biofuels a few years after promoting them,” Emmanuel Desplechin, Secretary General of ePURE, said.
While the bill phases out crop-based biofuels, those that can meet sustainability criteria that includes the impact of indirect land use change and still record a minimum 65% reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions versus fossil fuels can still be used.
Next stop for the bill will be a plenary vote in the full parliament in December. If the parliament agrees with the committee then it will have to broker a compromise with the EU Commission which favours a 3.8% cap and the EU Council of ministers.
The Council has yet to table a formal position on the bill, known as the Renewable Energy Directive (REDII), but leaks have suggested that it favours a cap of 7%.
“This is pretty strongly at odds with what the Council wants so I don’t know what the end result will be,” one Brussels-based observer told Energy Census. A spokesperson for the Council confirmed that there were obstacles that needed ‘unblocking’ but that they hoped to find a common position in time for the next meeting of the Energy Council currently slated for December 18.
Other observers expect the palm oil restrictions to be passed by the EU Parliament, but the overall increase in renewable energy to fail alongside the ban on crop-based biofuels.
“The plenary is a completely different story to the environment committee, but on the palm oil they should make it. The Parliament is united on this,” he said.
Even if there was a complete phase-out of biofuels and the UK abided by EU energy and climate policy in the post-Brexit era, the phase out of crop-based biofuels would not impact the UK until 2028.
Maximum contribution from liquid biofuels produced from food or feed crops to the EU renewable energy target.