Copa and Cogeca have adopted an updated position on the promotion of EU renewable energy. Copa and Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen said “The EU will need to rely on crop-based biofuels post 2020 in order to meet the EU’s ambitious climate and energy targets and to ensure greenhouse gas savings from the transport sector”.
“We need real blending rates that ensure renewables replace fossil fuels, not a policy that uses artificial multipliers to inflate the results and give the impression of success whilst increasing the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels”, Pesonen added.
Outlining key points needed for a successful policy, he urged the EU to maintain at 7 % until 2030 the maximum share for crop-based biofuels used in transport. There also needs to be a binding blending obligation on fuel suppliers of at least 14%, without technological restrictions. The contribution of palm oil and its derivatives to the EU’s climate and environmental objectives should be rejected too as long as sustainability problems such as deforestation in the country of origin remain unresolved. “European agriculture should not take the blame for deforestation in non-EU countries”, Pesonen stressed.
Finally, Copa and Cogeca call for the removal of all multipliers that give a misleading picture of the real environmental impact of renewable electricity in transport. Click here to read the position paper.
http://www.copa-cogeca.eu/Download.ashx?ID=1798244&fmt=pdf
