Commission Admits Policing Biofuels According to Public Opinion
by Sarantis Michalopoulos (EurActiv) The European Commission’s proposal for a gradual phase-out of conventional biofuels was based on public opinion, an EU official admitted. — Last July, the EU executive published a European Strategy for Low-Emission Mobility proposing that food-based biofuels be gradually phased out and replaced with “more advanced biofuels” [See background].
The proposal triggered strong reactions in the ethanol industry, which blamed the Commission for being “prejudiced”.
Listening to society
Speaking at a conference last Wednesday (12 October) in the European Parliament, Marie Donnelly, Director of Renewables, Research, and Energy Efficiency in the Commission’s DG Energy, explained the reasons behind the decision to phase out the first generation biofuels.
Donnelly noted that policy makers and politicians should take account of the view of society.
“We cannot just be led by economic models and scientific theories […] we have to be very sensitive to the reality of citizens’ concerns, sometimes even if these concerns are emotive rather than factual based or scientific,” she stressed, adding that the first concern regarding conventional biofuels is a purely emotive reaction to “food versus fuel”.
“There are many people in Europe who feel that if we take food and put in our tanks and cars, we are taking food from people who are starving elsewhere in the world,” she emphasised.
She underlined that the EU executive had done studies that showed the impact of its policy options.
“But don’t confuse me with facts, I believe what I believe, but we have not succeeded in changing that position in the minds of many people in Europe. This is the reality.”
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Charles-Albert Peers, President of the European renewable ethanol association (ePURE), said:
“The Commission claims that a phase-out of conventional, or what it has called ‘food-based’, biofuels is what the public want – yet the only EU-wide citizens opinion survey ever conducted on biofuels, which was published by the Commission itself, showed that 83% of Europeans feel that sustainable biofuels should be encouraged. Is the Commission out of touch with what the public actually want and ignoring yet again its own work?”
“NGO concerns about food vs fuel have been totally debunked: since the EU introduced its biofuels policy, global food prices have actually dropped while global biofuels production has significantly increased. The Commission recognised this in its own Renewable Energy Progress Report. Other myths blaming EU biofuels policy for causing land-grabs in Africa were also proven wrong because not a single drop of fuel ethanol has ever been imported into the EU from such African biofuel projects accused of land grabbing,” he added.
“European ethanol has low indirect land use change risks and high certified greenhouse gas savings— 64 percent compared to fossil fuel — and is the type of low carbon fuel that Europe should promote. Any phase-out of ethanol will simply rob transport of the chance to use a credible green alternative to petrol,” he concluded. READ MORE
