Responding to the European Commission's "Fit for 55" package, presented on July 14, 2021, the eFuel Alliance says that the package clearly does not make the EU fit enough for a climate-neutral future."The EU Commission has just missed a unique opportunity to present a comprehensive legislative package that would have truly reshaped European climate policy and made it fit for the future," said Ralf Diemer, Executive Director of the eFuel Alliance.
According to the eFuel Alliance, a stakeholder initiative dedicated to the industrial production of synthetic liquid fuels from renewable energies and sustainable biomass, the European Commission is just missing a huge opportunity in its “Fit for 55” package to accelerate the energy transition and help renewable energies in the form of electricity, hydrogen, or electro-fuels (efuels) equally make a breakthrough.
Illustrating the inequality, Diemer noted that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the Commission was setting 2035 as the end date for the conventional internal combustion engine (ICE), but that regulation would leave it up to automakers to decide which products would achieve this goal. In doing so, it expressly emphasized that this was also possible with combustion engines and climate-neutral eFuels.
With respect, Ms. von der Leyen, this statement is simply wrong. CO2 regulation only gives manufacturers the choice between electric or hydrogen cars. Combustion engines with eFuels are de facto excluded from regulation because they are treated like fossil combustion engines. We therefore urgently appeal for the establishment of new CO2 standards for new cars without fail – including renewable fuels in the CO2 standards. The European Commission’s pure electric vehicle strategy is a one-way street based on pure ideology, said Ralf Diemer.
The EU Commission’s proposals do not live up to von der Leyen’s claim to set a framework that is as open to technology as possible. Instead, the Commission’s proposals breathe the spirit of a planned economy in which the legislator decides which technology should be considered for which use.
The goal we all share is to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. For this, fossil fuels, not propulsion technologies, must be banned. A carbon-neutral internal combustion engine is much better than an electric vehicle that runs on electricity from fossil fuel power plants. We do not understand why renewable fuels for maritime and aviation are exempt from energy taxation for the next 10 years, while for road transport it remains the responsibility of individual member states to decide whether or not to exempt renewable fuels from energy taxation. This leads to a patchwork of regulation that creates a completely nonsensical and unnecessary additional burden and uncertainty for our companies, explained Tobias Block, Head of Strategy and Content at eFuel Alliance.
Much more investment in renewables from around the world is needed if the ambitious climate targets are really to be achieved.
The point is to avoid burning fossil fuels in the future and to promote the use of renewable fuels. This requires a future-oriented technology mix and not a commitment to a single technology that is supposedly the only solution. We absolutely must increase the share of renewable energies in the transport sector as well. We need a sub-target of 5 percent for hydrogen and efuels for all sectors by 2030 in the Renewable Energy Directive to secure investments and create a necessary demand, said Ralf Diemer.
The eFuel Alliance points out that it is now up to the European Council and Parliament to make the “right” corrections and pave the way for a comprehensive European climate policy that is truly fit for the future.
These corrections include carbon dioxide (CO2) based energy taxation, significantly more ambitious and uniform requirements in the Renewable Energies Directive (RED), and a CO2 regulation for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles that actually includes efuels and does not focus unilaterally on electromobility.