European fuel directive likely to include carbon reduction criteria

Mon 25 February 2008 View all news

New rules within the European Fuel Quality Directive would force fuel suppliers to cut life-cycle emissions of the fuel they supply by ten per cent over ten years either by improving production efficiency or supplying more biofuels.

According to the EU's Slovenian presidency, the deadlock has been broken in discussions over a review of the Directive.

ENDS reports that Governments and MEPs both welcomed the plans but said the law should include sustainability criteria to ensure the target would not prompt environmentally harmful biofuel production. European Parliament rapporteurs on both renewables and fuel quality are also reported to be supportive of the new proposals. 

The Commission has emphasised (see EurActiv news link) that sustainability criteria are already included in the Renewable Energy Directive, submitted in January, which proposes that 10% of all transport fuels in the EU should be comprised of biofuels by 2020. Under the draft law, biofuels failing to deliver life-cycle CO2 savings of at least 35% compared to fossil fuels, as well as biofuels planted in protected areas, 'highly biodiverse' grasslands, forests and wetlands, should not count towards the 10% target. 

Dragan Barbutovski, spokesman for the Slovenian representation to the EU said (quoted in EurActiv): "We do not want the Fuel Quality Directive, which is much more advanced, to be a victim of the Renewables Directive."

Representatives of EU governments have agreed to set up an ad hoc working group with the aim of drafting core criteria for biofuels, that would be included both directives.

However, some member states argue that the neccessary criteria are unlikely to be in place sufficiently early under either Directive to prevent fuel makers from investing in cheap but dirty biofuels.



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