The EU typically bases its policies around advice from the Joint Research Centre (JRC), but a warning from the scientists that the bloc\u2019s biofuels policy was also making a \u201csignificant contribution\u201d to the deforestation of peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia was ignored.<\/p>\n
The EU also neglected expert counsel that any reduced greenhouse gas emissions from fuel crops depended upon increased food scarcity.<\/p>\n
Sources say that the chief of staff for Research Commissioner\u00a0M\u00e1ire Geoghegan-Quinn\u00a0presented an opinion contrary to his directorate’s science team at a cabinet college meeting discussing an ILUC proposal<\/a> on 11 October. The draft was then watered down, and has since been kicked into the legislative long grass.<\/p>\n EurActiv obtained the JRC’s recommendation and other documents in an ‘Access to Information’ application. The recommendations note was sent to an undisclosed directorate on 10 October 2012, at the height of a furious lobby battle<\/a> which pitted biofuels companies against environmentalists.<\/p>\n At issue was a proposal for mandatory carbon accounting of all fuel crops, assignations of emissions to crops, and a 5% cap on the contribution that first generation biofuels could make to an EU target for providing 10% of fuel from renewable sources by 2020.<\/p>\n Industry emails to the Commission at this time\u00a0accused Brussels<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cpurposely causing the death of the whole EU biodiesel sector\u201d and questioned whether the ILUC phenomenon even existed.<\/p>\n But \u201cit is important that the principle of full\u00a0GHG\u00a0accounting is introduced in the proposed amendment by including ILUC,\u201d the JRC’s\u00a0recommendations say.\u00a0They also call for \u201cinclusion of the\u00a0ILUC\u00a0factors as written, resolving to update them quickly when new data becomes available, before the industry makes investment plans.\u201d<\/p>\n Other documents released in the trawl show that the JRC\u00a0expected this update to increase emissions estimates for\u00a0food crops such as sugars, cereals and vegetable oils, because a key International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report informing\u00a0the proposal<\/a>,\u00a0had undervalued them.<\/p>\n A\u00a0separate JRC briefing warns that \u201ca\u00a0significant contribution to global\u00a0ILUC\u00a0emissions due to EU biofuels policies comes from the conversion of\u00a0peatlands, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia. This causes oilseed crops to have a worse environmental performance than cereals\/sugar crops used for ethanol.\u201d<\/p>\n Cabinet ructions<\/strong><\/p>\n Yet on the evening of the day that the JRC sent its recommendations (10 October), members of Quinn\u2019s cabinet called for \u201ca possible delay in implementation\u201d of the EU\u2019s proposal and expressed concerns about the gloomiest industry forecasts, according to minutes of a cabinet meeting previously obtained by EurActiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n Earlier that day, members of Quinn\u2019s cabinet had met with representatives of the Irish-based Ethanol Europe Renewables Ltd (EERL).\u00a0Its chief executive, Eric Sievers, presented the Commission with a paper calling for ILUC\u00a0judgements\u00a0that supported ethanol and penalised\u00a0biodiesel.<\/p>\n