• Legislation on fuel production emissions should have sustainability criteria

    The European Parliament’s environment committee has given its support to the idea that sustainability criteria should be included in any legislation on reducing lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from fuels in transport.

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    In the first formal response from MEPs to the Commission’s proposals for cutting down the climate impact of fuel production (Article 7a of a proposed revision of the EU fuel quality directive), the committee supported the idea of idea of obliging fuel producers to make a 10% cut greenhouse gases by 2020, and said only biofuels that deliver lifecycle emission savings of at least 50% compared with fossil-based fuels can be counted towards this requirement.

    The committee’s vote could be significant if backed up by the full Parliament. The Commission is currently working on its own specific biofuels directive, which aims to get biofuels up to a 10% share of Europe’s transport fuels market. That legislation is expected to have sustainability criteria, and because of that, some centre-right MEPs have been saying sustainability criteria are not necessary in the revised fuel quality directive.

    In recent months, the political acceptability of biofuels as an environmental tool has become dependent on assurances about the wider social and environmental impact of how they are produced. MEPs have therefore insisted that biomass production or extraction must not lead to deforestation or loss of other carbon stocks, and must have ‘no significant negative impact’ on natural resources. In addition, all companies in the production chain must be certified and all fuel feedstocks must be traceable to their source.

    On the question of how to calculate the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of the fuels produced, MEPs said the method used to measure the greenhouse gas impact of fuels should also include the impact of land-use changes (such as deforestation) which can result for instance from displacements of farming.
    MEPs also voted to delete exemptions for air quality limits for fuel containing ethanol.

    This news story is taken from the December 2007 edition of T&E Bulletin.