BIOFUELS, TRANSPORT EMISSIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change is the greatest challenge that the world faces. If action is not taken to limit global warming, there will be massive environmental damage and some of the world's poorest people will face severe food and water shortages. Climate change is a major threat to our future prosperity.

The European Union has a strategic goal that the average increase in global temperature should be limited to no more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels. The EU has also set a firm target for a 20 per cent reduction in the EU's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. If these goals are to be achieved, emissions from all sectors will need to be reduced. A wide range of policy responses will be needed, including the delivery of a reliable carbon price, and encouraging people and businesses to change their behaviours. One of the key policy responses is promoting low carbon technologies.

Reducing emissions from transport is a top priority. The sector now accounts for over one quarter of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions and that figure is increasing.

A number of measures are needed to create lower emissions from transport, including: encouraging greater use of public transport; demand management, promoting more efficient vehicles; efficient use of infrastructure; and increasing the use of renewable transport fuels. All of these steps must be taken urgently and as elements of a coherent programme.

The key role of biofuels in tackling climate change

One of the EU's main policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport is promoting the use of alternative transport fuels in the form of biofuels.

Biofuels are derived from crops or organic wastes. Crops such as wheat capture the sun's energy and can then be converted into fuels like bioethanol, this can then be blended with petrol. The stored carbon is released by burning it in transport fuel, but is recaptured by growing more crops such as wheat. Biofuels replenish every year: they are a renewable energy resource. By contrast, oil is simply carbon that has been captured over many years and stored in the ground. Burning oil releases carbon into the atmosphere, one of the major factors in man-made climate change. Oil and, therefore, petrol are not renewable energy resources.

Where feedstock such as wheat is grown without causing either direct or indirect land-use change, most biofuels deliver net greenhouse gas savings.

By 2020, biofuels have the potential to deliver annual global greenhouse gas savings of around 338 - 371 million tonnes CO2e compared to a "without biofuels" scenario.

Promoting the use of biofuels

Biofuels can be used in Europe's existing car fleet, in blends of petrol or diesel. At the moment the level of blending is set at 5 per cent by volume under the European Fuel Quality Standard. This is currently under review and bioethanol blending in petrol is expected to be raised to 10 per cent by 2010.

In 2003, the EU Renewable Fuels Directive called on Member States to convert 5.75 per cent by energy (or around 7 per cent by volume) of their transport fuel to biofuels by the end of 2010.

The UK's Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO), which came into force on 15th April 2008, was introduced to assist the UK in meeting its obligations under the EU Renewable Fuels Directive. The RTFO requires oil companies and fuel importers to deliver a percentage of their annual fossil fuel sales from biofuels. The volume level is currently set at 2.5 per cent initially, rising to 5 per cent by 2010/11. The UK Government has set a target to reduce emissions from road transport by around 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year - equivalent to taking 1 million cars from our roads, thru the use of Biofuels blended into fossil fuels

Bioethanol can be produced locally in the EU using EU cereal crops and it is calculated by the National Farmers Union that the UK has enough land to meet these Biofuel blending targets without disturbing the food/fuel balance.

The EU has now set a binding target that 20 per cent of EU energy consumption - in electricity generation, transport or heat - should come from renewable sources by 2020. In January 2008, the new renewable energy directive set out a package of measures to achieve this target. The package includes a binding minimum target for renewable fuels to have a 10 per cent share (by energy) of the transport fuels market by 2020.
   

Why EU produced bioethanol?

Bioethanol produced from EU cereal crops such as wheat has a valuable role to play in meeting future road transport fuel demand for a low carbon, renewable and sustainable product.

The main reasons are as follows:

- Bioethanol produced from cereal crops such as wheat, grown in the EU delivers significant savings of greenhouse gas emissions, up to around 70 per cent when compared to fossil fuels;

- producing more bioethanol from wheat will not cause major increases in wheat prices between now and 2020;

- in Europe, large quantities of additional cereal crops can be grown for biofuels production without competing with food use, or causing displacement and indirect land-use change, even as global demand for cereals is increasing because more wheat can be produced from the same land; and good agricultural land that has been set aside can be brought back into production; and

- bioethanol from wheat can produce both food and fuel, thereby enhancing Europe's energy security and food security, with fewer land use requirements than other biofuels.