Seven years ago, the European Union enacted the renewable energy legislation that encouraged the use of biofuels in order to decrease carbon emissions from transport. But since then, there has been some concern about the unintended effects of changing farming practices to grow crops for the fuel \u2013 specifically about whether land use change could result in more emissions than biofuels actually abate, or affect food prices. Environmental NGOs want companies to switch to newer, \u2018second-generation\u2019 biofuels, which they say lead to less land use change.<\/p>\n
In reaction to the concern, the European Commission has proposed phasing out the use of so-called \u2018first generation\u2019 biofuels. The proposed legislation would end support for all such biofuels regardless of their impact on land use. Many are concerned that this policy changes an over-correction by unfairly lumping in good first-generation biofuels with bad ones. They also say it is counterproductive, in that it will discourage investment in second-generation biofuels. Given that many second-generation biofuels are still in development, a change in the support scheme could kill off the momentum toward increased biofuel use in Europe.<\/p>\n
A miscalculation in this area could have serious consequences for Europe\u2019s climate change goals. Road transport is currently 95% reliant on oil and accounts for 20% of EU emissions. By the Commission\u2019s own admission, the EU is making \u201cslow\u201d progress in decarbonizing EU transport. Could the revised legislation actually make the situation worse? It is a difficult decision that will have serious implications for Europe\u2019s climate future.<\/p>\n
What do you think? Hear from both sides of the argument in the video debate below with Bas Eickhout, a Green member of the European Parliament, and Emmanuel Desplechin from renewable ethanol association ePURE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven years ago, the European Union enacted the renewable energy legislation that encouraged the use of biofuels in order to decrease carbon emissions from transport. But since then, there has been some concern about the unintended effects of changing farming practices to grow crops for the fuel \u2013 specifically about whether land use change could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5714],"supplier":[2317,4514,3783,5585],"class_list":["post-43614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biofuels","supplier-european-commission","supplier-european-parliament","supplier-european-renewable-ethanol-association-epure","supplier-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43614"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=43614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}