The Renewable Energy Association (REA) has joined with four other European Union’s industry organisations to oppose European Commission’s proposals on indirect land use change (ILUC).
The consortium that includes organisations from Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain and UK has formulated a joint paper claiming that the commission’s proposal is based on unsound science.
The commission has proposed a regulation to limit the use of bio-fuels produced from foods crops, such as cereals and other starch rich crops, suggesting that the carbon emissions from ILUC should be included in the green gas emissions.
The industry group, in its paper, stated that the positive impacts of the bio-fuels produced from food crops have to be considered as well.
Commenting on the issue, REA renewable transport head Clare Wenner remarked the proposal made by the commission is based on unsound science and emotive campaigns against food prices rather than real world facts and data.
"In their current form, these proposals risk jeopardising billions of pounds of investment and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with that across the whole supply chain," noted Wenner.
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By GlobalDataThe group has also asserted that the overturn of the proposal will provide benefits such as production of high quality feedstock, positive effect in crop rotation and increase in bio-diversity in agriculture.
However, European Parliament’s Industry Committee (ITRE) is invited to discuss its draft opinion in response to the proposals.
"We welcome the contribution of the ITRE Committee to the ILUC debate, and many of its proposed amendments are broadly in line with the measures we recommend in our joint position paper.
"We urge the Committee to do all it can to bring these amendments into the European Parliament’s final position," added Wenner talking about ITRE’s draft opinion.
Further in its joint paper, the groups have advised that the proposal would pose problems such as decline in investment and 5% cap is a setback from already achieved biofuel share.
"We also urge the UK Government to take stock of both the European industry’s joint position paper and the ITRE Draft Opinion," concluded Wenner.
