Proposed Amendment to the Fuel Quality Directive and to the Renewable Energy Directive: EU's Promotion of 'Advanced' Biofuels Over 'Conventional' Biofuels

Climate Change Insights 2012-11-26

Summary:

On 17 October 2012, the European Commission (‘Commission’) issued a Proposal for a Directive designed to amend the Fuel Quality Directive (‘FQD’),[1] and the Renewable Energy Directive (‘RED’).[2]  The aims of the Commission’s Proposal are multifold: (i) reduce conventional biofuels’ contribution to the achievement of the RED’s objectives; (ii) promote increased market penetration of ‘advanced’ biofuels through higher contributions to the achievement of the RED’s quantitative objectives compared to ‘conventional’ biofuels; (iii) ameliorate the greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) performance of biofuel production processes; and (iv) ameliorate the reporting of GHG emissions by Member States and fuel suppliers.  On the whole, the Proposal is premised on the need to prioritize ‘advanced’ biofuels over ‘conventional’ biofuels.[3] ‘Advanced’ biofuels are biofuels “that do not compete with food”, do not require an extra demand for land, are more sustainable and generally that have a lesser GHG impact than first generation or ‘conventional’ biofuels.[4]

As a matter of background, the RED requires the EU as a whole to achieve by 2020 a 20% share of renewable energy in the EU’s gross final consumption of energy.[1]  This overall quantitative objective translates into variable renewable share targets placed upon Member States and covering all sectors, and into a uniform requirement for Member States to reach a 10% share of renewable energy in their gross final consumption of energy in the transport sector.[2]  The RED provides that for biofuels to contribute to the achievement of the 10% share, they need to satisfy three sets of sustainability criteria: (i) potential for 35% GHG saving increasing to 50% as of 1 January 2007 and to 60% as of 1 January 2008 for biofuels produced in installations that started biofuel production as of 1 Jaunary 2007; (ii)  requirement that biofuels be not produced from raw materials made from land with high biodiversity value, with high carbon stock or from land that was peatland in January 2008; and (iii) Common Agricultural Policy requirements.[3]  Biofuels produced from waste and residues, other than agricultural, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry residues, are only subject to the first set of sustainability criteria.[4]  Furthermore, biofuels produced from waste, residues, non-food cellulosic material and ligno-cellulosic material count double towards Member States’ 10% transport fuel target.[5]

The FQD requires fuel suppliers to reduce by 31 December 2020 the life cycle GHG emissions per unit of energy from fuel and energy supplied based on a 2010 baseline by 6%.[6]  For biofuels to count towards the 6% reduction target, they must also comply with the above sustainability criteria.[7]

The Commission, in its Impact Assessment for the Proposal, considered five policy options designed to tackle the problem of indirect land use change caused by the diversion of agricultural land from food production to biofuels with the consequence that the food supply needs extra agricultural land:

  • Status quo and continue applying the current sustainability criteria under the FQD and RED (Option A);
  • Increase the threshold for biofuels’ GHG saving (Option B);
  • Provide for additional sustainability criteria (Option C);
  • Reflect the indirect land use change in the quantity of GHG emissions associated with biofuels (Option D);
  • Limit the contribution of conventional biofuels to Member States’ and suppliers’ quantitative targets (Option E).

The Proposal ultimately combined option E with elements of options B and D.[8]  This would have the following implications:

  1. Under the amended RED, waste would be defined by reference to the Waste Framework Directive.[9]  Substances which have been intentionally modified or contaminated for the purpose of meeting the waste definition would be excluded from that categorization.  Under the current RED, as already indicated, biofuels produced from waste count twice towards Member States’ achievement of their 10% renewable share target in the transport sector.
  2. Under the amended RED, biofuels produced from specifically listed feedstocks would count twice towards the achievement of Member States’ 10% renewable share target in the transport sector: (i) used cooking oil; (ii) Cat.

Link:

http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/ClimateChangeInsights/~3/KPVhIHgHZ7c/

From feeds:

Berkeley Law Library -- Reference & Research Services » Climate Change Insights

Tags:

eu international environmental law ghg european commission european union ghg emissions greenhouse gas emissions greenhouse gases european parliament fossil fuel fuel biofuel greenhouse

Authors:

Nicolas Croquet

Date tagged:

11/26/2012, 20:32

Date published:

11/26/2012, 17:02