The European Commission published its long awaited ‘energy and climate package’ this week, including new plans for expanding emissions trading and renewable energy, according to the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).
Despite the many warnings that have been issued recently, even by the Commission’s own scientific body, the Commission sticks to its goal of boosting the use of agrofuels, most prominently through a 10% agrofuels target for the transport sector by 2020, the CEO reported.
This will not only leave the transport sector off the hook in terms of real CO2 emission cuts, but lead to serious environmental and social damage. The very limited ‘sustainability’ criteria proposed by the Commission are no solution, as they ignore the social conflicts and human rights abuses related to struggles over land use, environmental impacts such as soil degradation and water depletion, and macro-impacts such as increasing food prices, to mention a few examples.
Despite the European Commission’s stubborn insistence on the 10% agrofuels target, industry wants even more. The European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBFTP), initiated and financed by the European Commission, demands a stunning 25% agrofuels use in road transport by 2030.
The EBFTP, dominated by industry sectors such as car companies, oil firms and agrofuel producers, spells out this demand in the ‘Strategic Research Agenda’ and related policy documents developed for the Commission. CEO, in cooperation with Confédération Paysanne Européenne, Ecologistas en Acción, Friends of the Earth Europe, Transnational Institute and World Development Movement, has sent a letter of protest to Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik about this disastrous case of corporate policy capture.
There is no lack of greenwash efforts in the EU agrofuels debate. After the EU governments made the 10% target conditional on agrofuels being produced ‘sustainably’, a rush has started to develop a certification system that can give the appearance of sustainability.
A range of existing certification schemes are being proposed as models, despite the many flaws that have been identified with these schemes. In reality, such certification schemes would simply legitimise a new expansion wave of industrial plantations.
