In the Official Journal of the European Union dated March 9, 2012 the European Commission announces that it has decided on its own initiative to initiate an interim review investigation of the anti-dumping measures applicable to imports of bicycles originating in the People’s Republic of China. (BikeEurope)

In the Official Journal publication the European Comission says: “The Commission has at its disposal sufficient prima facie evidence that, as far as dumping and injury are concerned, the circumstances on the basis of which the existing measures were imposed might have changed and that these changes may be of a lasting nature.

Export quota system
“In particular, the information at the disposal of the Commission indicates that the export quota system that applied to bicycle producers in the People’s Republic of China and that hindered the exporting producers in being granted market economy treatment in the amending interim review, has been abolished in January 2011.

“Furthermore, changes to the structure of the Union industry have taken place. In particular, several Union producers switched from the complete cycle of production to (partial) assembly operations using imported parts.

Cost level of the Union industry
“Moreover, due to the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007, a significant number of producers joined the Union bicycle industry. In addition several producers which had been part of the EU industry before the two enlargement rounds moved their production facilities or set up new facilities in the new Member States. As a result, the cost level of the Union industry might have changed.

“Finally, the present injury elimination level was calculated on the basis of bicycles made out of steel whereas it appears that currently the majority of bicycles are made of aluminium alloys. All these developments appear to be of a lasting nature and therefore substantiate the need to reassess the injury findings,” says the European Commission.

Exemption scheme
The review investigation will determine whether there is a need for the continuation, removal or amendment of the existing measures. Furthermore, the review investigation will also assess the exemption scheme and its functioning and will determine whether there is a need for any change thereto.

In order to obtain the information it deems necessary for its investigation, the Commission will send questionnaires to the sampled Union producers and to any known association of Union producers. These parties must submit a completed questionnaire within 37 days from the date of the notification of the sample selection, unless otherwise specified. The completed questionnaire will contain information on, inter alia, the structure of their company(ies), the financial situation of the company(ies), the activities of the company(ies) in relation to the product under review, the cost of production and the sales of the product under review.

Deadlines
Union producers, importers and their representative associations, users and their representative associations, and representative consumer organisations are invited to make themselves known within 15 days of the date of publication of this notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, unless otherwise specified. In order to participate in the review investigation, the representative consumer organisations have to demonstrate, within the same deadline, that there is an objective link between their activities and the product under review.

All interested parties may request to be heard by the Commission investigation services. Any request to be heard should be made in writing and should specify the reasons for the request. For hearings on issues pertaining to the initial stage of the review investigation the request must be submitted within 15 days of the date of publication of this notice in the Official Journal of the European Union. Thereafter, a request to be heard should be submitted within the specific deadlines set by the Commission in its communication with the parties.

Vilnius, a fantastically well-preserved mix of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, classical and contemporary architecture, is enchanting the eye of the visitor. And the lungs as well. While documenting for a short climate change related article it bounced as a surprise that the Lithuanian capital enjoys the cleanest air in urban agglomerations in Europe. The answer to such low levels of CO2, CO, NOx or heavy metals in the East-European air of Vilnius, as well as to being an overtly bicycle and people friendly city, must have lied in some really alternative local leadership and policies.

View of Vilnius Centre. Photo 2C

Thus, I wrote a letter to the town’s charismatic mayor. Arturas Zuokas peaked global notoriety following a rather military public-relations move when he drove a tank over an illegally parked automobile and his Youtube viral video became quite an international alternative media hit (see embedded video). As an environmental journalist and passionate cyclist, I was rejoicing in some strange feeling of justice and revenge. On the other hand, watching a Soviet tank rolling on the street in an apparent legitimate mission gives me the chills, brings back a scary image of Brezhnev, and makes me wonder if urban ecology did actually need a PR war-monger.

“Sometimes you need a tank to get your message across,” wrote Zuokas to 2Celsius. “If you see something, you have to do something about that – and this is the only way to solve problems. We have, shortly after this event, strengthened forces against illegal car parking. The number of policemen on patrol has been doubled in the city.” Indeed, Vilnius was one of the first towns to introduce an intelligent city-wide traffic management system (TMS). The municipality improved its control over the rising amount of traffic in the city center causing serious congestion and jams. The traffic system was set-up by Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group, in conjunction with a local consortium.

Arturaz Zuokas, mayor of Vilnius. Photo: zuokas.lt

Well, same Siemens indexed Vilnius as the capital with the cleanest air in the EU. Says Zuokas: “talking about air pollution, one of the latest Green City Index made by Siemens company revealed that Vilnius can be proud to have the cleanest air among European capitals. Also infrastructural changes – new bypass roads are being build – help to control and reduce pollution. “

“There always should be balance between all kinds of transportation in the city. We are glad numbers of those who chose riding a bike in the city are increasing significantly during recent years,” the mayor added.

“We are always thinking how to solve traffic problems in the city, especially in the Old Town (included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1994 – n.n.). We are investigating most modern and environmentally friendly ideas to implement them into our public transport in the City Centre as well as all over the city. Different financing structures are also being considered.” Public transport, far from satisfying Jan Gehl’s sustainable city, relies on soviet flavored electric trolley buses, gas guzzling buses and a bunch of higher-speed vans named maxi-taxis.

Vilnius has already gone through the East-European trauma of having a bike sharing system implemented when no one was prepared for a non-motorized urban evolution; an older program of the municipality named the “Ride Orange” turned out to be a flop due to massive thievery from the two-wheeled orange armada.

Electric bus in Vilnius. Photo 2C

During Zuokas’ first term, the municipality invested in the construction of cycling paths and the installation of bicycle stands, while private sponsors such as Rubikon Apskaitos Sistemos, Utenos Alus (beer), Baltic Vairas (the largest East-European bicycle construction plant), Lietuvos Draudimas, Pieno Zvaigzdes and other firms – had bought the bikes. The 1,000 orange bikes, in a good yet involuntary promotion of green jobs, were ordered from the Siauliai-based company Baltic Vairas.

The Hype

“Ride Orange” eventually had some downturns. Are you envisioning similar projects?

“Yes we do. This summer Vilnius has become the first city in Europe to offer an electric bike share system, we are also looking forward to implement city bike rental system as soon as possible,” Zuokas replied.

Vilnius, electric bike rentals. Photo 2C

Indeed on the occasion of the European basketball championship, September 2011, in Vilnius, the municipality launched a “Rent and Share” program allowing residents and tourists to rent electric bicycles at four Tourism Information Centers located in the business downtown and Old Town areas. One has to block approximately EUR145 on her credit card and pay around EUR5 per hour in order to get electric on bicycling. Thieves must face top notch technology this time; all electric bikes are being monitored via GPS.

“Everyone should find the most comfortable way to travel in the city. Segway is also one of them, but I often use a bike or electric bike as well. There is no need to advertise comfortable transport,” concludes the mayor, a declared fan of electric transport.

NIBBLES

Green space. “Vilnius has number of green spaces that we are up to preserve, develop and manage properly. We are also looking for the ways to expand these areas. In the near future we will renovate one of the oldest park of the city – Sereikiskiu parkas, that is situated in the very heart of Vilnius – in the Old Town near the Gediminas Castle.”

Vilnius Cathedral. Photo 2C

Energy saving in buildings (Lithuania does not have a Green Building Council). “House [insulation and] renovation is a big issue in our country and in Vilnius as well. There is a municipal company that consults and helps citizens to organize the renovation projects, but the program is still moving too slowly. There are some financial incentives from the Central Government, but it seems that there is much work to be done in this field.”

Strategy. “Vilnius has no particular document as Environmental Master plan. But the principles of city development are stated in other relevant plans, as General Plan until 2015, Vilnius City Strategic Plan for years 2012-2020. They include principles of sustainable development, green areas saving and healthy environment creation. Whereas Vilnius is a green city, it has clear objectives to save the best it has.”

PR. Besides riding tanks and Segways, Zuokas ticked something extra in his PR endeavors. He was endorsed in his last election campaign by… Jeremy Irons. Yes, the actor.

Corruption. Zuokas was convicted of bribery and thrown out of office in 2007, merely to return in the last municipal elections.

International relations. Within the same PR/advertising paradigm, the mayor has proposed the Lithuanian government buy an island in Greece to use as a resort – “an exclusive place for rest in the Mediterranean for our citizens, but also a great global advert for Lithuania.”

Raul Cazan

A major carbon accounting flaw in EU legislation whereby biofuels used in transport and biomass used for power generation are counted as ‘zero emissions’ will have “immense” consequences for the environment. This is the key finding of a report published by the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, a top EU advisory body.

The report warns that counting biofuels and biomass as ‘zero emissions’ is wrong because it ignores the emissions that come when the fuels are burned, assuming that this impact is automatically offset when new plants grow. In many cases these emissions will not be offset because increased demand for land for bioenergy will just displace emissions elsewhere.

The report goes on to say that “if bioenergy could or should provide 20% to 50% of the world’s energy needs in coming decade…doing so would require doubling or tripling the total amount of plant material currently harvested from the planet’s land.” Such an increase would have devastating environmental consequences.

The report follows the similar findings of a study published in June last year by three environmental organisations, BirdLife Europe, EEB, and T&E. The organisations have repeatedly called for an end to so-called ‘zero counting’ of bioenergy emissions, including those from biofuels production.

The EU is currently reviewing one of the accounting flaws linked to its mandatory renewable energy target for transport, which will mostly come from a switch to biofuels. Currently so-called EU ‘sustainability criteria’ fail to account for the central question of indirect impacts on land use and emissions (Indirect land use change or ILUC). ILUC occurs when biofuel crops replace food crops. The land needed to grow the missing food is displaced, often to the developing world. This in turn causes rainforests and other sensitive eco-systems to be destroyed to grow food, causing a massive release of emissions.

Many EU countries are scaling up on biomass for heat and power, and biofuels for transport to meet mandatory European renewable targets. The report shows that continuing with today’s flawed carbon accounting would lead to an increase rather than a decrease of emissions in the real world.

Biomass and biofuels receive generous subsidies and tax breaks across Europe, leaving the EU faced with the prospect of an ‘environmental’ measure causing disastrous consequences, and largely funded by the taxpayer.

Ariel Brunner, Head of EU policy of BirdLife Europe said: “The EU has been basing its entire bioenergy policy on fake carbon accounting; the result is a sub-prime bioenergy mortgage that will never be paid off unless the EU changes course immediately.”

Faustine Defossez of the European Environmental Bureau said: “This study should be taken as a wake up call to start bringing out some badly needed policy adjustments: it is now clear that the increase in harvesting of plant material for energy purposes, foreseen under the Renewable Directive, will have serious negative environmental, including climate impacts”

Nusa Urbancic of Transport & Environment said: “The European Commission has been sitting on its hands for almost three years figuring out what to do about the indirect effects of biofuels. Every serious scientific body that has studied the issue says action is needed, the EEA is the latest in a long line. The EU should waste no more time coming forward with a proposal to fix this massive accounting hole. It’s important not just for the environment but also for the biofuels industry in Europe, which has frozen most of its investments, until it knows what the future rules are going to be.”

Read full report here.

Marco Onida, Secretary General of the Alpine Convention, interviewed for 2Celsius Network by Raul Cazan

The Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention organized from 4th to 12th July 2011 the fifth edition of SuperAlp!, the sustainable crossing of the Alps.

For the fifth year SuperAlp! linked different territories, issues and cultures aiming at improving the knowledge of the Alpine Convention, that recognizes the Alps as a whole and unique territory.

A group of journalists belonging to world’s top publications (and 2Celsius Network was among them) crossed the Alpine arc for 10 days using sustainable means of transport and trying out the various links that make up the chain of alternative mobility to private cars. The group traveled from France to Italy across Switzerland and Austria by train, bicycle and on foot.

The 2011 edition let participants discover the conditions of alpine glaciers, one of the most evident indicators of the effects of climate change. It also intends to make this crossing an occasion to communicate the Alpine Convention and its Protocols as tools for the sustainable development of the Alpine region, easily transferable also to other mountain regions of the world.

What is SuperAlp and why did you organize it?

SuperAlp is a project of the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention that has two main aims. The first aim is to bring the Alpine Convention to the territory. The Alpine Convention is a treaty, which entangles alpine territory, but the territory not always knows this. The second aim is through this long journey of journalists we talk about the Alps, we determine journalists to write about the Alps and we raise awareness on critical topics such as sustainability in the Alps. SuperAlp is made with public and sustainable means of transport and fueled with local food, as to show that it is possible to travel like that.

What was the theme this year, 2011?

This year we have chosen glaciers as a theme. We are particularly interested in climate change. It has extreme effects on the Alps; the average increase in temperature in the Alps is higher than the average increase in other areas of the Northern Hemisphere, we had 2 centigrade increase in the Alps (within the last two decades, n.n.), the effects are very visible and, most of all, very expensive. One of the most visible effects is the retreat of glaciers. We chose 5 glaciers in the Alps and we crossed them all in order to see with our eyes what the situation is and to talk to knowledgeable people, glaciologists, experts that have been living here for the last 50-60 years and that are able to explain what is the situation’s evolution, what is the speed of the retreat, what are the problems associated to this retreat and so on.

Journalists on Breithorn (4165m)

On what criteria did you choose the journalists?

We published an open call for interest on the internet to which some journalists replied and some were contacted directly. We have actually been quite selective this time because we wanted journalists whom were not only to hike on mountains with ice axe and crampons, but that are very motivated because in days like today we were walking seven hours and it is not the only day we were hiking that long.

Do you see any similarities between the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention?

The principles are pretty much the same, which means cooperation to solve common problems and to better exploit the common opportunities. The reality, however, is quite different. The Carpathian area is much bigger than the Alps, it is much wilder than the Alps, nature is still to a certain extent unspoiled, it is not that much tourist friendly as the Alps, problems are different. The Carpathian Convention was signed in 2003 that is it is still much younger. It is difficult to compare the two, I would say, from the point of view of the philosophies they are pretty much the same although there are objective differences due to the physical differences of the countries which are associated to the Carpathian Convention. There are not always easy relations with Ukraine, which is member of the Carpathian Convention. I mean political relations are good, but cooperation on the territory requires long-standing trans-border cooperation, which is not part of every day life between Romania, Poland and Ukraine. So the idea is pretty much the same, yes.

It is pretty much the same even when considering the whole geographic area because they belong to the very same orogeny, Carpathians, Alps, Pyrenees…

Yes, exactly. They are the mountains of Europe, basically and they are pretty much neglected from the political perspective, neglected by the European policies, the interests of people in the mountains are not being always considered and this is why it is very important to have these conventions because they can also jointly do lobbying in Brussels to have better consideration of mountain dimension. We often do this with the Carpathian people.

Three years ago I had the great joy to join you in SuperAlp 2. The theme of that project was mountain communities and mountain agriculture. What happened after? Any follow up?

Well, changes in the Alps take ages like everywhere in society. So I would say that we are experiencing pretty much the same situation, we see the same problems with public transport not being enough developed. What we see as a weakness is a little less awareness related to the existence of the Alpine Convention because in the last three years we were working intensively, but in the Alps the situation is quite unchanged. To a certain extent it is actually worsened. And that is on two dimensions. Climate change and tourism. We are going towards a quite dangerous direction with mass tourism in the mountains and not realizing that this is not going to be sustainable.

Why not?

First of all, there is too much focus on winter tourism, on skiing. Ski resorts are investing to get more slopes and ski lifts, but there is less snow and less people mainly due to a greater competition. Today people also want to have quieter holidays even off-season, so there should be a diversification of tourism offers that take place only in some resorts, alpinism villages that we visited in Austria. This is an interesting development, but there are still places where mass winter tourism is considered to be a must and this is harming the environment. But I should say that this is also harming the economy because it makes no sense to have for two months people coming from all over Europe, locals to work there and then, for he rest of the year – mere unemployment.

So do you think that initiatives such as SuperAlp can be applicable to the Carpathians – a SuperCarpatica?

Well, that would be a dream. Distances in the Carpathians are much bigger, probably the development of public transport in mountain areas of the Carpathians is still at an early stage. And also, I would say, probably the political consideration of mountains in areas of the Carpathian countries is not yet the same as here. In the Alps we have a stronger environmental pressure, mass tourism, massive transport transit, loss of mountain agriculture. In the Carpathians, after the political changes in Europe and the accession of many Carpathian countries to the European Union, problems are rather… quite others. But it is very good to have this cooperation because we want to anticipate problems. So the Carpathians can find themselves in the very situation in which the Alps were 20 years ago; so we can anticipate and better deal with these problems. Soon, the Tatras can be in the very same situation in which the Alps are today. We should take care of that.

Can we go back to mountain communities? I know last year you had as theme in SuperAlp food and gastronomy. The funny thing is that in Romania most of the traditional food – or what we generally call slow food nowadays – is coming from the mountain areas. That means there is a lot of added value to food comes from the mountains. How did you tackle that?

This is very important, yes. Last year we had Slow Food as a partner of SuperAlp, we visited the headquarters of Slow Food and its university of gastronomic sciences in Polenzo (Piedmont, Italy), and across our journeys we stopped in places where we almost always had local products. It is quite clear that there is a strong demand for that. Particularly in times of globalization and health problems associated to urbanization or hysteria such the latest e-Coli, if one eats mountain food nothing happens to him or her. Now having this food in mountain areas is good, it creates new opportunities and money. But it requires also a lot of investment in order for the products to reach the cities, which is not always easy – also because of the low quantities in which food is produced. But I think this a very important development and that is why we concentrated SuperAlp on that and it should be a focus of the Carpathian countries as well.

Growth in the EU’s biofuel consumption faltered in 2010, increasing by only 1.7 million tonnes of oil equivalent compared with 2.7 Mtoe the previous year, according to the latest annual report by renewable energy group Eurobserver.

Consumption grew by 13.6% to reach 13.9 Mtoe. This is well below the estimated 18 Mtoe needed to meeting the EU’s indicative 5.75% target for 2010. Only Sweden, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia have met this target. Collectively, member states are expected to have achieved 4.7%.

One reason for the slowdown in 2010 could be the confusion over EU sustainability criteria, suggests Eurobserver. The announcement of the first seven EU-approved certification schemes in July is likely to help boost biofuel consumption. Fuels certified under these voluntary schemes will be assumed to meet the criteria.

For further details please consult Eurobserver’s biofuels barometer at:

http://www.eurobserv-er.org/pdf/biofuels_2011.pdf

Revising “Eurovignette” road haulage tax rules will make it possible for Member States to charge hauliers for air and noise pollution costs, in addition to motorway tolls, announced the European Parliament via a communique’. A directive approved by Parliament on Tuesday will ensure that revenue from these charges is used to improve the performance of transport systems and cut pollution.

In the debate, Said El Khadraoui (S&D, BE), who is steering the legislation through Parliament, said that the compromise reached marks a cornerstone for the next decade of European transport policy as it “offers for the first time the possibility to Member States to charge external costs (…) and to make best use of a wide range of toll variations to improve mobility.”

On average, 3 to 4 euro cents per vehicle/km may be added to charges for using transport infrastructure to cover the external costs of road haulage, starting with air and noise pollution. The directive will cover not only trans-European transport (TEN-T) networks, but all motorways, and will apply to vehicles of over 3.5 tonnes. If a Member State wishes to grant exemptions for vehicles of up to 12 tonnes, then it must notify the European Commission of the reasons why..

Said El Khadraui

In exchange, Member States firmly commit themselves to invest 15% of overall revenue in TEN-T networks. The remaining amounts should be used to reduce damage to the environment and develop all transport systems sustainably. To promote transparency and public debate, MEPs inserted in the law a requirement that Member States report regularly to the Commission on the charges imposed and the use made of revenue from them.

Fleet renewal incentives

Lorries with the least-polluting engines will be exempt from air pollution charges until 1 January 2014 (EURO V emission class), and until 1 January 2018 for EURO VI. In sensitive and mountainous regions, the existing “mark-up” of up to 25% may continue to apply and may be added to the external costs charged for lorries in the heaviest pollution classes (EURO 0 to II). It may also be extended to the EURO III class from 1 January 2015.

Avoiding traffic jams

To manage traffic flows more effectively without generating more revenue, charges may be varied by up to 175% in congested areas, with the highest charges applying during five rush hours, and lower rates at all other times. To enable hauliers to calculate their costs and plan routes, the European Commission will make available a list of charges and the times whey they apply throughout the EU.

The new Eurovignette rules, approved with 505 votes in favour, 141 against and 17 abstentions, still need to be formally approved by EU Member States.

Critiques came from peripheral countries:  Spain, Portugal, Greece and the Baltic states. They were concerned over the competitiveness of their businesses.

Strong support came from transit countries: France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Eurovignette concerns only electronic tolls. Member states that do not have such systems in place will not be able to apply green road charges.

The EU has reached an agreement on revised road charging rules for lorries (the Eurovignette directive) that would open the door for Member States to charge for air and noise pollution in road tolls but introduces a loophole for lorries under twelve tonnes. The deal was finalised last night in ‘trialogue’ discussions between the European Commission, Council and Parliament.

Distance-based road charging schemes are already in operation in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia. Poland will launch its scheme in July. Belgium, France, Hungary and Spain all have systems in the planning stages.

Nina Renshaw, deputy director at Transport & Environment (T&E), said: “Distance-based road charging makes the transport sector smarter and more efficient. This agreement will enable EU countries to directly target the noisiest and most polluting lorries, which is a significant step forward. But it still forbids charges to cover the EUR 60 billion costs of climate change, congestion and accidents caused by lorries: that’s a wasted opportunity and is unnecessarily restrictive.”

In a step backwards, a requirement in the existing directive for charges to apply to all lorries from 3.5 tonnes upwards from 2012 has been scrapped. Following pressure from Germany, Member States will now be able to give lorries under 12 tonnes a free ride, under certain conditions.

Road freight is the transport sub-sector with the fastest growing greenhouse gas emissions (together with aviation and shipping) and imposes a disproportionate burden on the European population and the economy in terms of congestion, accidents, noise and air pollution.

Renshaw commented: “EU countries are going to need much more flexibility to tackle the fastest growing sources of transport emissions, especially if they want to meet the EU’s recently announced 60% target for cutting transport emissions. Setting targets is all very well, but countries need tools like the Eurovignette to help them get there, not impose unnecessary restrictions.”

Road pricing reduces the negative impacts of pollution, congestion and accidents, but also allows a shift of taxation away from labour and enterprise. The primary effect of distance-based lorry charging is to stimulate efficiency within the road freight sector, via improved load factors, reduced empty driving, route optimisation, avoidance of congested times, etc. Charging will stimulate a more efficient freight sector, better prepared for future challenges.

The agreement between the three EU institutions now needs to be formally approved by Transport ministers and the full Parliament before becoming law.

Evidence reveals the negative impacts many biofuels can have on the environment: displacing crop-lands, driving deforestation and, in many instances, actually increasing green house gas emissions. Unless current policies increasing biofuel production are changed to include meaningful sustainability standards that take ‘indirect land use change’ (ILUC) into account, biofuels will cause more harm than good.

ILUC is happening as a direct result of a legally binding EU target for 10% of transport fuel to come from renewable fuels (mostly biofuel) by 2020. As fields of food crops are switched to grow biofuels for our cars, somebody somewhere goes hungry unless those missing tonnes of food are grown elsewhere. This expansion of global agricultural land comes at the expense of forests and wildlife.

The crops that make-up the shortfall could come from anywhere, but economics dictate it will likely be in tropical regions, encouraging farmers to cut down rainforests, or drain ancient peatlands – both resulting in a massive release of greenhouse gas emissions.

For most current biofuels, the effect is to wipeout any benefits for climate change – making them worse even than fossil fuels.

A recent study by the independent Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) found that the use of biofuels in EU transport will emit between 81% and 167% more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels in 2020 and the knock-on effects of growing these biofuels will mean converting an area twice the size of Belgium of forests, grasslands and peatlands into new crop fields. The findings were based on EU member states’ own plans for increasing use of biofuels and the most recent science.

Environmental organisations are calling on the EU to bring forward a legal proposal to account for the ILUC problem by only allowing biofuels that are better overall than fossil fuels, when ILUC is fully accounted for. The European Commission is expected to propose how it intends to deal with ILUC by July.

For more information on EU biofuels policy consult with the organisations behind this campaign:

• BirdLife Europe
• ClientEarth
• European Environmental Bureau
• Friends of the Earth Europe
• Transport & Environment

Biofuels can provide up to 27% of world transportation fuel by 2050, IEA report says. IEA ‘roadmap’ shows how biofuel production can be expanded in a sustainable way, and identifies needed technologies and policy actions.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) says that the widespread deployment of biofuels can play an important role in reducing CO2 emissions in the transport sector and enhancing energy security, when produced sustainably.

With the transportation sector growing considerably, and demand for transport fuels rising globally, the IEA assesses biofuels – liquid and gaseous fuels derived from biomass (organic material derived from plants and animals) – as one of the key technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce dependency on liquid transport fuels. The report shows how global biofuel consumption can increase in a sustainable way – one in which production of biofuels brings significant life cycle environmental benefits and does not compromise food security – from 55 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) today to 750 Mtoe in 2050; this would mean that the global share of biofuel in total transport fuel would grow from 2% today to 27% in 2050.

“While vehicle efficiency will be the most important and most cost-efficient way to reduce transport-emissions, biofuels will still be needed to provide low-carbon fuel alternatives for planes, marine vessels and other heavy transport modes, and will eventually provide one fifth (2.1 gigatonnes of CO2) of emission reductions in the transport sector,” Bo Diczfalusy, the IEA’s Director of Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology, said at the launch of the report today in Washington.

The IEA prepared the Technology Roadmap Biofuels for Transport in consultation with representatives of government, industry, academia and non-governmental organizations. The roadmap provides an overview of the current status of different conventional and advanced biofuel technologies and the latest research on sustainability issues related to biofuel production. It also charts a course for expanding the production and use of biofuels to 2050, in a sustainable way.

This report is the latest in the IEA’s series of technology roadmaps, which aim to guide governments and industry on the actions and milestones needed to achieve the potential for a full range of clean energy technologies.

Efficient technologies needed

Biofuels can provide transport fuel with substantially lower CO2 emissions than conventional gasoline or diesel when comparing the entire “life cycle” of production – that is, from the field to the vehicle. But there are caveats: it is important to reduce the use of fossil energy during cultivation, transport and conversion of biomass to biofuel. It is also important to avoid direct or indirect land-use changes, such as converting forests to grow biofuel feedstocks, which release large amounts CO2 and could offset the CO2 reduction potential of biofuels.

Most conventional biofuels (produced mainly from starch, sugar and oilseed crops) must therefore be improved in terms of conversion- and land-use efficiency to achieve considerable greenhouse-gas reductions. In addition, advanced biofuel technologies currently at the demonstration stage (produced mainly from lignocellulosic biomass such as wood and straw), need to be commercially deployed within the next ten years and will provide the major share of biofuels in 2050.

“Further support for advanced biofuel research, development and demonstration is still needed to improve conversion efficiencies and reduce costs. In addition, investments in commercial-scale production units will be a key to enable advanced biofuels to reach full market maturity,” said Mr. Diczfalusy at the launch in Washington. “Government action is needed to provide a stable, long-term policy framework for biofuels that allows for sustained investments in biofuel expansion. Specific support measures that address the high investment risk currently associated with pre-commercial advanced biofuel technologies will be vital to trigger industry investments in first commercial plants.”

With these substantial investments in place, most biofuel technologies could get close to cost-competitiveness with fossil fuels, or even be produced at lower costs in the longer term. In total, the report assesses the expenditure on biofuels required to meet the roadmap targets between USD 11 trillion to USD 13 trillion over the next 40 years, depending on the actual production costs. “This figure may seem large, but in fact even in the worst case biofuels would only increase the total costs of transport fuels by around 1% over the next 40 years, and could in fact lead to cost reductions over the same period.”

Sustainability is key

“With world population growing by more than 30% to 9 billion people in 2050, and food demand increasing approximately 70% according to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, competition of biofuel production for land with food, fodder, as well as fiber production needs to be carefully addressed to avoid negative impacts from biofuel expansion on food security,” said Mr. Diczfalusy.

There is a great potential for using low-risk sources that require limited land expansion, and should not compete with food production, to provide feedstock for the expanding biofuel industry. The report says the use of residues and high-yielding energy crops as feedstocks, and the efficient use of biomass, for instance through integrating biofuel and bio-material production (so-called biorefineries), will be vital to reduce land competition. In addition, sustainability certification of biofuels, following internationally agreed sustainability criteria, will be an important step towards ensuring that biofuel production and use have a positive environmental, social and economic impact.

Around 3 billion tonnes of biomass per year will be needed in 2050 to produce the amount of biofuels envisioned in the IEA roadmap. The report assesses that 1 billion tonnes of biomass residues and wastes would be needed, and this would need to be supplemented by production from around 100 million hectares of land – around 2% of total agricultural land. This would be a three-fold increase compared with today, but the yield of biofuels could increase by a factor of 10 through the use of wastes and residues and through the use of more productive crops and processes.

The report stresses that governments should adopt mandatory sustainability standards for biofuels, and ensure they are internationally aligned, to avoid acting as barriers to trade. Since many points of criticism on biofuels’ sustainability are in fact issues concerning the whole agricultural sector, the report concludes that biofuel policies should be aligned with those in agriculture, forestry and rural development. An overall sustainable land-use management strategy for all agricultural and forestry land will be the only way to avoid land-use changes with negative impacts on the environment and CO2 emissions, and to support the wide range of demands in different sectors.

International collaboration is vital

The report stresses that reducing tariffs and other trade barriers will be important to expanding the trade in biomass and biofuels to reach the levels necessary to meet emerging demand in different regions of the world. International co-operation will also be needed to further develop analyses of sustainable land and biomass potentials, and obtain detailed regional data on suitable feedstocks for biofuel production. To ensure developing countries can successfully adopt sustainable biofuel production, international collaboration on capacity building and technology transfer will be necessary, the report stresses. Developing countries interested in introducing biofuels can profit from the experience of other regions, including lessons learned and best practices for biofuel production, as well as the government policies that can help ensure that required investments are beneficial for local economies.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) failed to reach agreement on global action to address greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping at a meeting in London last week.  Environmental groups have repeated calls for EU action in the absence of progress on global measures.

The objective of last week’s meeting was to first assess and then progress the work of an IMO expert group on market-based measures such as emissions-trading schemes that completed its work last summer.

But a clear split was evident between some developing countries who saw no compelling need for such a measure and those developed countries which proposed a number of options including emissions trading, a global levy on shipping and trading of fuel efficiency credits. A handful of developing countries continued to insist that the IMO must follow a principle of global climate talks that developing countries should have less responsibility for cutting emissions than developed ones.  This issue continues to be a stumbling block to further progress.

The stalemate demonstrates that an IMO market based measure to reduce emissions from the maritime sector is still years away.

The EU has previously said that the IMO should take action on shipping emissions by the end of 2011 or it would take regional action.  This latest setback means that deadline almost certainly cannot be met.   In the meantime the EU has set a target for reducing ship emissions by 40% by 2050.   Environmental groups SAR, T&E and EDF believe the EU now needs to get on with the job of introducing a regional measure that can be extended globally if and when the IMO acts.

On a positive note, the meeting made progress on ways to ensure developing counties are not harmed economically by climate measures for shipping (known technically as ‘no net incidence’).  There was also a useful discussion on the need for revenues from measures to flow to developing countries.  But any consensus on a way forward would appear to remain years away.

The IMO Intersessional Meeting on greenhouse gas emissions from International Shipping : Market-based Instruments was held in London 28 March – 1 April.

The European Commission’s Transport 2050 white paper, launched last week: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/372&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en