Regulations:

Europe considers renewable proposals for legislation

10th August January, 2007

On 10 January 2007 the European Commission pitched several ideas for a new Energy Policy for Europe. These included a renewable energy roadmap suggesting a binding 10% target for the share of biofuels in petrol and diesel in each member state in 2020, to be accompanied by the introduction of a sustainability scheme for biofuels. The Commission is now drafting proposals to incorporate these targets in legislation. In doing so it will take into account the views of stakeholders on biofuels use. It has recently closed a further relevant consultation that sought more detailed views on biofuels use. In particular, the Commission sought answers on the following broad areas:

• How could a biofuel sustainability system be designed?
• How could overall effects on land use be monitored?
• How could the use of second-generation biofuels be encouraged?
• What further action is needed to make it possible to achieve a 10% biofuel share?

These questions imply that the Commission and Parliament are seeking to discourage the conversion of land with high biodiversity value for the purpose of cultivating biofuel feedstocks. However, the Commission will be keen to avoid any discrimination between domestic production and imports, and introducing any barrier to trade.

Sustainability and land use change

A possible way forward identified by the Commission is that the scheme could list sustainability criteria to be fulfilled by the same biofuels that are used to fulfill biofuels targets. Such a scheme could also ensure that any biofuels that failed to meet one of these criteria would not count towards member state biofuel obligations. They would not be eligible for tax reductions and similar types of financial support. Finally, member states would be responsible for ensuring that the criteria were respected and the legislation would set out some procedural requirements (for example on reporting, verification and monitoring). In addition, the Commission considered the type of evidence that member states would have to accept as proof that the sustainability criteria were fulfilled.

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