EU Biofuel Target Seen Driving Species Loss: Study
(Reuters) A European Union target to promote the use of biofuels will accelerate global species loss because it encourages the conversion of pasture, savanna and forests into new cropland, EU scientists have warned.
…The scale of species loss in areas converted into new cropland could be more than 80 percent, the scientists from the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) said in a newly published report.
…One of the report’s authors stressed that the finding was based on a preliminary analysis of the issue and that more research was needed to accurately quantify the likely impact on biodiversity caused by the EU’s biofuel mandate.
…(M)odels are intrinsically uncertain, and biofuel producers and other critics have argued that the scientific uncertainties are still too great to use them as the basis for changes to EU policy. READ MORE
