The UK government has adopted a new approach to biofuels for transport and decided to slow down the enforcement of the UK’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, which requires fuel suppliers to increase the mix of biofuels in road transport fuel by 1.25%  year, rising from 2.5% in 2008-09 to 5% in 2010-11. Instead the government will consult on extending the 5% deadline to 2013/14.

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The new approach is the result of a review of environmental and social impact of biofuels by Professor Ed Gallagher, the head of the government’s Renewable Fuels Agency.


The review recommends that the introduction of biofuels should be slowed until controls are in place to ensure that they deliver actual carbon savings. It raises concerns that forests may be cleared to make way for biofuel production and that food prices can rise as competition for land increases.


The government believes there is a role for sustainable biofuels so it is not abandoning its policy completely.  Indeed, it says that by 2020 “biofuels have the potential to deliver annual global greenhouse gas savings of approximately 338 – 371 million tonnes of carbon dioxide”.  Thus it has a ruled out a moratorium on biofuels because that would reduce the ability of the biofuels industry to invest in new technologies or transform the sourcing of its feedstock to more sustainable supplies.


The UK will continue to support the EU target of 10% renewable transport fuels by 2020, but argue that the target is conditional on the evidence showing that it is being delivered sustainably and without significant impacts on food prices. It will ask for the 10% target to be kept under regular review.

In fact the European Parliament voted on Monday for the targets to be reduced. The Environment Committee of the European Parliament voting in Strasbourg agreed to reduce the proposed ten percent target for the use of biofuels in transport by 2020 to four percent by 2015 followed by a major review. The MEPs also supported the incorporation of electric or hydrogen cars into the target to potentially reduce the use of biofuels even further.


Adrian Bebb, agrofuels coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe said: “The political tide in Europe is now turning against biofuels.  This vote gives a clear political signal that an expansion of biofuels is unacceptable. Politicians are waking up to the fact that using crops to feed cars is a disaster in the making for both people and nature.”


The European Commission has criticized the Gallagher report as being ‘one-sided’. According to Thomson Financial, a spokespan for Energy commissioner Andris Piebalg said the report seemed to ignore a general consensus there is enough land for bioenergy and to meet growing demands for food.


The Gallagher report recommends that biofuel production target idle and marginal land and the use of so-called second-generation biofuels, which uses waste parts of plants for energy to avoid land use change and reduce competition with food production.