EU green transport target 'may have increased greenhouse gas emissions'

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/14/eu-green-transport-target-may-have-increased-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Renewable transport goal has encouraged biofuels including those from palm oil and soybean, which are found to be worse than diesel oil for emissions

EU green transport target 'may have increased greenhouse gas emissions'
Arthur Neslen in Brussels
Monday 14 March 2016 06.57 EDT

European Union renewable energy targets may have increased greenhouse gas emissions because the dirtiest biofuels produce three times the emissions of diesel oil, according to the most complete EU analysis yet carried out.

Biodiesel made from palm oil emits more than three times as much and soybean oil around twice as much, when the crops’ effects on land use are considered, the research by the Ecofys consultancy for the European commission found.

Europe’s aim of sourcing 10% of its transport fuel to “renewables” by 2020 – mostly biodiesel - will foster crop cultivation on 6.7m hectares of forests and grasslands, the paper says. When the loss of trees is factored in, such ‘first generation biofuels’ would generate around nearly 1bn tones of CO2 equivalent.

“We need to rapidly accelerate the phase-out of first generation biofuels,” said Jos Dings, director of the green thinktank Transport and Environment (T&E). “Biodiesel is a big elephant in the room. It accounts for three quarters of the biofuel we use in the EU and this report pinpoints that its emissions are much worse than fossil fuels.”