Despite EU Palm Oil Ban, Biofuel Problems Will Continue

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January 24, 2018

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(Deutsche Welle) Members of the European Parliament have rejected an attempt to phase out support for crop-based biofuels. So what's next in the food versus fuel debate? -- ... The legislative shift, set to take effect in 2020, won't actually change much at all when it comes to financial support for crop-based biofuels.

While palm oil can no longer receive subsidies under the new framework, other biofuels based on food crops still can.

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"Palm oil is the cheapest vegetable oil on the market," Herman (Oxfam's Marc-Olivier Herman) explained. So if the share of palm oil consumed in the EU for bioenergy goes down but the mandate for biofuel targets remains, "what's not covered by palm oil will have to be covered by other vegetable oils," he told DW.

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Palm oil is not just present in biofuels, it's ubiquitous in daily life — as DW's Klaus Esterluss discovered when he tried to complete a challenge to go a week without using palm oil.

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Herman says that if all crop-based biofuels were banned, the market would instead turn to electricity to meet the renewable transport goals.

It would also spur investment in new second-generation biofuels currently under development — that don't displace food production or cause more greenhouse gas emissions.

Herman condemned the biofuel industry as having "been built around public subsidies, tax breaks and mandates."

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The biofuel industry, for its part, has been meeting with members of parliament to say that the science around indirect land use change is still uncertain, and that good biofuels are being lumped together with the bad.

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But they say the push to have all biofuels banned from receiving subsidies, as led by Oxfam, would kill a fledgling industry that is not yet developed enough to survive on the open market.

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Now that the European Parliament has adopted its position, it will enter negotiations with the 28 EU national governments, led by Bulgaria, to agree on a final version of the legislation.

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EU member states in December adopted their joint position on the legislation, which would increase the renewable transport target to 14 percent and allow continued subsidies to crop-based biofuels for at least the next 12 years.

Anti-biofuel campaigners recognize this as a largely lost battle. But they look with hope to a provision which would allow individual EU countries to adopt biofuel subsidies lower than the EU-wide cap.

"A lot of the battles will take place at national level in the coming years, because there are uncertainties about implementing the directive," says Herman. "In general, there is a move to let each member state figure it out." READ MORE

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