NGOs call on European Commission to phase out crop-based biofuels

In Belgium, 24 non-profit organizations, including T&E, WWF, Oxfam, and Birdlife, have called on the European Commission to choose climate, nature, and people over free trade, and respect the legal obligations to review the rules on deforestation-causing biofuels.

The Commission has been postponing since June 2021 the publishing of the latest report on the expansion of unsustainable feedstocks for biofuels production, such as palm and soy, into highly biodiverse areas. This report is the basis for including soybean oil alongside palm oil in its classification of high ILUC risk feedstock in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), and phasing it out from counting towards renewables targets.

The NGOs say both soy and palm oil have already been identified as significant drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and are covered under the recently adopted EU Deforestation Regulation. The letter calls on the Commission therefore to ensure policy consistency and prevent the RED from acting as a loophole that enables deforestation-driving products into the EU.

The European Parliament has already called for an immediate phase-out of both soybean oil and palm oil during the RED negotiations, while several EU Member States, including France, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands, have already started this phase-out on their own accord.

All biofuels made from crops should be phased out from EU renewable energy targets, as using land for biofuel production is counterproductive in climate terms, they said. Soy-based biodiesel is one of the worst offenders and has been proven to emit up to twice as much CO2 as the fossil fuel diesel it is used to replace when taking into account the indirect deforestation caused by the demand for soybean oil. Currently, soy and palm biofuels constitute only one-third of the EU biodiesel feedstock volume, yet they contribute two-thirds of biodiesel CO2 emissions in the EU.