MEP Fiona Hall hosted a breakfast debate on the 2020 Cars and CO2 proposal. A series of presentations were made, followed by a discussion on the impact of fuel-efficient cars on employment, innovation and industrial competitiveness.
With this new blog post, T&E programme manager for clean fuels Nusa Urbancic unveils the process which has led to the weakening of a draft proposal that deals with biofuels sustainability, turning it into a missed opportunity. Urbancic also hints at the way in which the Parliament and Council can improve the proposal in the months to come.
The Commission has published its eagerly awaited proposal to address indirect land-use change (Iluc) impacts of biofuels production. But the proposal stops short of tackling emissions from Iluc, saying such emissions must be reported but do not affect fuel producers’ ability to count biofuels as part of their renewable energy and climate targets. T&E has called this a missed opportunity to get the EU’s biofuels policy right.
With today’s biofuel proposal [1], the European Commission has acknowledged the climate impact of biofuel emissions from indirect land-use change (ILUC) [2] but does not tackle it. The proposed obligation to monitor ILUC emissions from biofuels will not solve the key environmental issue of halting production of unsustainable biofuels that are, in some cases, more harmful to the climate than fossil fuels, Transport & Environment says.
T&E welcomes the news that the European Commission is taking a firststep towards resolving the negative impacts of biofuels from foodcrops, but urges commissioners to go further by addressing theseimpacts via all relevant legislation.
T&E’s French member organisation FNE has started a campaign showing that fine particle emissions from diesel engines can have deadly consequences for human health and the environment.
Airlines have told the Commission that making the use of biofuels in aviation obligatory would harm their competitiveness.
The Commission has denied that changes to the EU Fuel Quality Directive will breach World Trade Organisation rules.