A green campaign group has published a set of leaked industry figures showing the massively increased reliance on palm oil in European biodiesel, something that they claim is increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
The group, Transport and Environment (T&E), claim that the figures, which they acquired from “EU vegetable oil industry association Fediol”, show “the ugly truth” of the European biodiesel industry, and the policies driving its increased use.
According to the data, 45% of the palm oil imported into Europe in 2014 was used for biodiesel, up from 8% in 2010.
“This explosion [in use of palm oil] has fuelled all of the 34% growth in biodiesel consumption in Europe in that period” said T&E.
Due to this increased use, T&E estimate that every year, around 3.5 billion litres of palm oil are being imported into Europe every year, fuelling deforestation in countries that export it. In order to produce palm oil, huge amounts of forested land have been cleared in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.
A recent study conducted by consultants Ecofys for the European commission showed that, with the whole production line taken into account (including the effects of crops of land), palm oil based biodiesel emits three time as many greenhouse gases as conventional diesel oil. In fact, the clearing processes required to prepare land for palm oil production release so much C02 into the atmosphere that last year, Indonesia became the fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
T&E said: “The expansion of these [palm oil] plantations into natural rainforest is both having a devastating impact on biodiversity and causing net greenhouse gas emissions, to the effect that palm oil biodiesel is three times worse for the climate than fossil diesel.”
A report from T&E back in April based on the European Commisson’s data showed that Europe’s biodiesel policy“was supposed to reduce CO2 emissions but instead it’s set to increase Europe’s overall transport emissions by almost 4%”.
Commenting on this latest data leak, T&E’s executive director Jos Dings said: “We now know why the industry is withholding these numbers, they show the ugly truth of Europe’s biofuel policy. It drives tropical deforestation, increases transport emissions, does nothing to help European farmers and does not improve our energy security”
Dings appealed to policymakers based on this data, saying: “We should phase out first-generation biofuels after 2020. Moreover, we should end the folly whereby biofuels that harm the climate still count as zero-emission fuels towards our climate targets. If we do not end incentives for bad biofuels, the better ones will not stand a chance.”
According to T&E, the European commission is currently in the process of reviewing the Renewable Energy Directive, which includes the biofuels mandate, and would be instrumental in making Dings’ aims a reality.
The Guardian managed to obtain comments from The Euopean Biodiesel Board (EBB) in response to T&E’s claims.
They were told by the secretary general of EBB that the figures obtained by T&E were not wholly accurate, but did not offer alternative figures for palm oil use in biodiesel in Europe, instead simply saying: “the figures we have are substantially lower than that. We would put between 10-15% [of palm oil] globally for biodiesel consumption”.
