biofuels

In a key committee vote on the reform of the EU bioenergy policy, the European Parliament has improved the reform proposal, but Oxfam says it does not do enough to end the EU's bioenergy policy's destructive effects on the climate and on people worldwide.

In its proposed new Renewable Energy Directive, the European Commission has given in to the pressure of the biofuel industry lobby at the expense of people and the climate. The proposal would allow EU countries to rely on food-based biofuels to meet their 2030 climate and energy targets, notwithstanding strong evidence of their harmful impact on communities and the environment.

The European Union must overhaul its current bioenergy policy, which is based on getting fuel from plants, because the industry is linked to the eviction of thousands of people from their lands, out-competing food crops, and creating more not less pollution, says Oxfam in a new report.

Today MEPs voted to introduce a seven percent cap on food-based biofuels and to include carbon emissions from land use change in environmental assessments.

European Governments are increasingly relying on bioenergy as a cheap way to meet targets for renewable energy. Bioenergy represented 62% of EU’s renewable energy use in 2012. But new evidence on the real climate impacts and other environmental and social impacts of bioenergy has made its use increasingly controversial. 

Today the European Parliament’s Environment Committee approved a deal with EU governments to cap the amount of harmful biofuels used to meet renewable energy targets.

Today the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted in favor of tightening the cap on biofuels competing with food production for land and other precious resources, such as water.

EU energy ministers met today to adopt amendments to the Renewable Energy Directive and the Fuel Quality Directive made in June.

At today’s meeting of EU Energy Ministers, a debate was held on the 2030 European Climate and Energy Package as well as the Energy Security Strategy put forward by the European Commission last mont

At today’s EU Energy Ministers Council, Ministers approved a proposal to amend the EU’s Renewable Energy Directi