Open letter to MEPs from civil society groups and NGOs calls for a change in EU biofuels policy

Date added: 12 June, 2013

A large number of European environmental organisations have written an open letter to MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) asking them to make crucial changes to the EU biofuels policy. The policy is not only failing in its basic objective of cutting CO2 emissions from Europe’s transport, but is also costing governments and taxpayers €10 billion in support every year.  The letter says instead EU biofuel policy exacerbates land grabs, deforestation, hunger and poverty. It questions how it can be justified to support this ineffective policy with so much public money. The letter asks MEPs to halt the expansion of land-based biofuels in transport; to fully account for the lifetime carbon emissions of biofuels, including their indirect land use impacts; and to phase out subsidies and public support for environmentally damaging biofuels. Airlines are interested in using more biofuel, though flights so far using oils that have competing human food use have been minimal.

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Open letter to MEPs calling for a change in EU biofuels policy

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and a bit of history:

New study predicts future consequences of a global biofuels program

23.10.2009   (EurekAlert)

Carbon emissions caused by the displacement of food crops and pastures may be
twice as much as those from lands devoted to biofuels production

MBL, WOODS HOLE,

A report examining the impact of a global biofuels program on greenhouse gas
emissions during the 21st century has found that carbon loss stemming from the
displacement of food crops and pastures for biofuels crops may be twice as much
as the CO2 emissions from land dedicated to biofuels production.

The study, led by Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Jerry Melillo,
also predicts that increased fertilizer use for biofuels production will cause
nitrous oxide emissions (N2O) to become more important than carbon losses, in
terms of warming potential, by the end of the century.

Using a global modeling system that links economic and biogeochemistry data,
Melillo, MBL research associate David Kicklighter, and their colleagues examined
the effects of direct and indirect land-use on greenhouse gas emissions as the
production of biofuels increases over this century. They report their findings
in the October 22 issue of Science Express.

Direct land-use emissions are generated from land committed solely to bioenergy
production. Indirect land-use emissions occur when biofuels production on cropland
or pasture displaces agricultural activity to another location, causing additional
land-use changes and a net increase in carbon loss.

No major countries currently include carbon emissions from biofuel-related land-use
changes in their carbon loss accounting and there is concern about the practicality
of including such losses in a system designed to reduce fossil-fuel emissions.
Moreover, methods to assess indirect land-use emissions are controversial. All
quantitative analyses to date have either ignored indirect emissions altogether,
considered those associated from crop displacement from a limited area, confused
indirect emissions with direct or general land-use emissions, or developed estimates
based on a static framework of today’s economy.

Using a modeling system that integrates global land-use change driven by multiple
demands for land and that includes dynamic greenhouse-gas accounting, Melillo
and his colleagues factored in a full suite of variables, including the potential
of net carbon uptake from enhanced land management, N2O emissions from the increased use of fertilizer, environmental effects on carbon storage, and the economics
of land conversion.

“Our analysis, which we think is the most comprehensive to date, shows that direct
and indirect land-use changes associated with an aggressive global biofuels program
have the potential to release large quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere,”
says Melillo.

Melillo and his colleagues simulated two global land-use scenarios in the study.
In Case 1, natural areas are converted to meet increased demand for biofuels
production land. In Case 2, there is less willingness to convert land and existing
managed land is used more intensely. Both scenarios are linked to a global climate
policy that would control greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel sources to
stabilize CO2 concentrations at 550 parts per million, a target often talked about
in climate policy discussions. Under such a climate policy, fossil fuel use would
become more expensive and the introduction of biofuels would accelerate, ultimately
increasing the size of the biofuels industry and causing additional effects on
land use, land prices, and food and forestry production and prices.

The model predicts that, in both scenarios, land devoted to biofuels will become
greater than the total area currently devoted to crops by the end of the 21st
century. Case 1 will result in more carbon loss than Case 2, especially at mid-century.
In addition, indirect land use will be responsible for substantially greater carbon
losses (up to twice as much) than direct land use.

“Large greenhouse gas emissions from these indirect land-use changes are unintended
consequences of a global biofuels program; consequences that add to the climate-change
problem rather than helping to solve it,” says Melillo “As our analysis shows,
these unintended consequences are largest when the clearing of forests is involved.”

In their model, Melillo and his colleagues also simulated N2O emissions from
the additional fertilizer that will be required to grow biofuel crops in the future.
They found that over the century, N2O emissions will surpass CO2 in terms of warming
potential. By 2100, Melillo and his team estimate that in both study scenarios,
biofuels production will account for more than half of the total N2O emissions
from fertilizer. “Best practices for the use of nitrogen fertilizer, such as synchronizing
fertilizer application with plant demand, can reduce N2O emissions associated
with biofuels production,” the scientists say.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/mbl-ns102009.php#

see also

“Biofuel production can be climate-friendly says U.N.E.P.”

What the UNEP report actually says is this:

“Increased biofuel production is expected to have large impacts on biological
diversity in the coming decades, mostly as a result of habitat loss, increased
invasive species and nutrient pollution.”

“Clearing the natural vegetation mobilises the stocked carbon and may lead to
a carbon debt, which could render the overall GHG mitigation effect of biofuels
questionable for the following decades.”

“there is a potential risk for competition between food and fuel, and consequences
on food prices as a result.”

“For net consuming regions like the EU and countries like Germany, models have
shown that an increased use of biofuels would lead to an overall increase in absolute
global cropland requirements. This implies that if biofuels are produced on existing
cropland, other production – in particular for serving the growing food demand
beyond the capacities to increase yields – will be displaced to other areas (“indirect
land use”). As long as the global cropland required for agricultural based consumption
grows, displacement effects, land conversion and related direct and indirect impacts
may not be avoided through selected production standards for biofuels.”

“Clearing the natural vegetation mobilises the stocked carbon and may lead to
a carbon debt, which could render the overall GHG mitigation effect of biofuels
questionable for the following decades.

The total CO2 emissions from 10% of the global diesel and gasoline consumption
during 2030 was estimated at 0.84 Gt CO2, of which biofuels could substitute 0.17
to 0.76 Gt CO2 (20-90%), whereas the annual CO2 emissions from direct land conversion
alone are estimated to be in the range of 0.75 to 1.83 Gt CO2.”

You can read the report at:

http://www.unep.fr/energy/bioenergy/documents/pdf/Assessing%20Biofuels-full%20report-Web.pdf

Posted: Wednesday, June 12th, 2013. Filed in Biofuels News, Recent News.