NOW A POLITICAL ARGUEMENT

As the European Parliament has begun to formulate a stance that the EU’s biofuel targets are too high for comfort Oliver Schaeffer, of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), pours scorn on suggestions by MEP Dorette Corbey, rapporteur on the Fuel Quality Directive that the EU’s target of using 10% biofuels in Europe’s transport fuels by 2020 is ‘too high’.

The biofuels target is part of a broader goal to ensure that 20% of all European energy comes from renewable sources by the same year.But the debate is growing at the EU level as media throughout the 27 member states focus on rising food prices.

Climate change, energy efficiency, sustainable energy and carbon footprints are undoubtedly hot topics these days, and while preserving the environment is not exactly a new concept, the past few years have seen a new angle to the debate. Europe, for its part has seen fit to distinguish the difference between environment and energy, with two separate Commission portfolios. There is some logic here; one is about maintaining the natural world, and has its roots in past generational ideologies, the other is about market forces, and has its eye firmly on the future.

Europe’s bio fuel ambitions will come with heavy tax penalties, industry sources are warning. As an internal debate about the practical implications of bio fuel targets continues within the European Commission a survey published Thursday shows that 36 percent of European citizens think that tax incentives are the best way to encourage the use of bio fuel.

As the EU announced an energy agreement with Morocco for the import of natural gas and electricity its internal energy plans were in disarray. Officials are rushing out a new energy white paper due to be published as soon as October as they realise that their March paper on energy committing to a binding minimum of 10 percent bio fuel for transport by 2020 is unsustainable.