Ahead of the trilogue talks between the EU institutions on the EU’s renewable energy plans, Copa and Cogeca call for a stable long-term policy to maximise the potential of European crop-based biofuels to decarbonise the transport sector.
Going into the trilogue negotiations on the EU’s post-2020 renewable energy plans between the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament, Copa and Cogeca, a European association of farmers and their cooperatives, has announced that it has adopted an updated position on the promotion of EU renewable energy.
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, said Pekka Pesonen, Secretary-General, Copa and Cogeca.
Outlining key points needed for a successful policy, Pesonen urged the EU to maintain at 7 percent 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 percent, without technological restrictions.
Copa and Cogeca also call for the removal of all “multipliers that give a misleading picture” of the real environmental impact of renewable electricity in transport
No to palm oil
In its updated position paper, Copa and Cogeca note that the hydrotreatment process to produce a renewable diesel (HVO) eliminates the cold resistance issues that previously limited the share of palm oil in biodiesel obtained from conventional esterification process.
Thus palm oil could increase its share in the cap on crop-based biofuels leaving “less room for biofuels of European origin” and is why the organisation supports the European Parliament’s proposal to set at zero the consumption of palm oil in the calculation of palm oil’s contribution to the crop-based cap as well as to the EU’s RES objective.
The contribution of palm oil and its derivatives to the EU’s climate and environmental objectives should, according to Pesonen, 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.
However, Copa and Cogeca also point out that its position does not equate to a “physical ban” on using palm oil as a source of renewable energy in the EU.
