The European Union’s fuel-quality directive currently proposes to assign a default emissions value to natural bitumen (oilsands) that is higher than the value for conventional crude oil, inrecognition of the increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from the production and upgrading of oilsands.
A new study by Carbon Matters and CE Delft shows that proper implementation of the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) with different values assigned to different types of unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil shale, can shift investments away from these ultra-high carbon energy sources towards lower carbon ones, leading to global greenhouse gas savings. As such, the study underpins the need for keeping such differentiated values in the legislative proposal by the European Commission, which is currently subject to an impact assessment.
Europe is reforming its biofuels policy due to concerns raised about its impact on global land use change patterns and global food markets. The negative environmental impacts of the biofuels policy have been well demonstrated, but what is less clear are the economic implications. T&E, the EEB, BirdLife Europe and IISD have therefore funded this report to evaluate the costs and the benefits of the EU’s biofuels policy and its implications for the EU governments and citizens, who are currently facing economic hardship.
Under the Dutch biofuels obligation, fuel suppliers are required to include a minimum share of biofuels in their overall sales of road transport fuels: 4.25% in 2011 and 5% in 2012. From 2011 onwards they have also had to submit an annual report detailing the biofuels they sell on the Dutch market. The data from these various sources are then compiled by the Dutch Emissions Authority (NEa), which publishes a selection of the results.
Putting EU green transport policy back on trackEuropean countries are ramping up biofuel use in an effort to meet their obligations under EU objectives to decarbonise energy in the transport sector. But green transport targets for 2020 in the renewable energy directive (RED) and fuel quality directive (FQD) have largely served to incentivise damaging technologies, in particular unsustainable “land-based biofuels” [1].
Two EU laws, the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) adopted in 2009, promote the use of biofuels in the EU, ostensibly for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector.
Read about the key facts & figures on biofuels and the definition of ILUC, learn about their real-world consequences, and find out why these issues matter to YOU.
In this open letter, Transport & Environment, in conjunction with other environmental campaign groups, call on EU Finance Ministers urging them to support a significant increase in the minimum levels of taxation of diesel fuel for transport purposes.
Two EU laws adopted in 2009 promote the use of biofuels in the EU, ostensibly for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. However, both the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) could lead to higher, not lower greenhouse gas emissions unless the issue of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC)
