• Emissions from land-use change must not be ignored

    Jos Dings writes in today's European Voice: It is unfortunate, especially considering the millions of euros his company is spending on advertising its views on EU biofuel policy, that the president and CEO of Abengoa Bioenergy is apparently not aware of studies that calculate the impacts of land-use change on lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel production.

    Full text of the letter:

    It is unfortunate, especially considering the millions of euros his company is spending on advertising its views on EU biofuel policy, that the president and CEO of Abengoa Bioenergy is apparently not aware of studies that calculate the impacts of land-use change (LUC) on lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel production (‘Truth about biofuels is not inconvenient‘, 23-29 October).

    According to its website, Abengoa Bioenergy is “currently one of the largest producers of bioethanol in the US”. So one such study, by Searchinger et al, published in the journal Science in February seems particularly relevant. “By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% saving, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years,” he says.

    The US government has passed a law that requires direct and indirect emissions from LUC to be included in calculations of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels. Europe is still lagging behind with a proposal to increase its volume target without accounting for indirect impacts in any way.

    The European Parliament’s industry and environment committees have both wisely voted to reverse this stance and include a conservative correction factor that would apply in 2011, if a comprehensive methodology is not developed before. That approach follows the precautionary principle, which is a fundamental element of European law. Or as John Maynard Keynes put it: “It’s better to be approximately right [ie, with a correction factor] than to be precisely wrong [without one].” The impacts of biofuel production are occurring now, so we believe the correction factor should apply as soon as the directive comes into force.

    T&E is not against biofuels per se. We simply argue that only those that bring genuine environmental benefits should be brought to market and rewarded for their environmental performance. That is why T&E and others have long argued to replace biofuel volume targets with a greenhouse gas reduction target for transport fuels. Accounting for land-use change must be absolutely central to the policy.

    Jos Dings
    Director
    Transport and Environment (T&E)

    The following letter from Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University, author of the report cited above, was also published in this week’s edition of European Voice:

    Ten major reports this year from international and European technical agencies have warned that using productive land to make biofuels competes with land needed to grow food and to store carbon and therefore risks both hunger and increases in greenhouse gases.

    Productive land is already in short supply in a world that must produce roughly twice as much food by 2050 to feed a growing population and yet somehow reduce the large deforestation already occurring to do so. Biofuels are simply one way of taking advantage of the capacity of land to grow plants that remove carbon from the atmosphere – forest and food are others.

    To assess whether biofuels reduce greenhouse gas emissions, any fair accounting must calculate not only the benefit of using this land for biofuels but also the cost. This cost is the carbon emitted directly by ploughing up forest or grassland to grow biofuels or indirectly to replace food diverted to biofuels.

    This basic accounting principle represents an absolute consensus of such technical organisations as the International Energy Agency, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, the OECD, the European Commission’s Joint Research Committee, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Science Committee of the European Environmental Agency.

    I therefore read with interest Javier Salgado Leirado’s letter ‘Truth about biofuels is not inconvenient’ (23-29 October) arguing that “certain biofuels” can avoid indirect land use change. His letter does not elaborate, but this statement is certainly true.

    Biofuels from municipal and forest waste, and some crop residues provide excellent examples because these raw materials do not need to be replaced by clearing more land.

    For the EU to encourage these kinds of good biofuels that do not compete with food and forest, the Union must enact policies that calculate the land use change resulting from different biofuels and therefore differentiate between them. The original biofuels directive proposed by the European Commission last January did not do so, but the European Parliament has improved on that proposal and its version would distinguish biofuels based on their land use change.

    It is a pleasure that Leirado, who represents one of Europe’s largest biofuel producers, recognises the potential to pursue biofuels that do not compete with food and forest. It is now up to those crafting the final directive to ensure that it reflects this wisdom, differentiates biofuels by their land use change and encourages only those that avoid it.

    Timothy D. Searchinger
    Princeton University
    United States