Leaping Before They Looked: Lessons from Europe’s Experience with the 2003 Biofuels Directive
Download the document (pdf)
Jonathan Lewis, Clean Air Task Force, October 2007.
In 2003 the EU issued a Directive promoting the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport. The Directive sought/seeks to have biofuels account for 2% of EU transport fuels by 2005, 5.75% by 2010, and in a 2007 addendum, 10% by 2020.
The EU mandate was primarily driven by farm policy, to create new outlets for agricultural and forestry products, and to diversify rural economies. Reduced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), energy security, and improved environmental impacts were cited as ancillary benefits of the policies. However, due in part to global market forces and economic efficiencies in developing countries, the result is that the Directive has exacerbated some of the very problems it was designed to solve, driving up food prices, leading to increased deforestation in tropical countries, worsening global warming, and increasing imports of bio-oils.
This report from Clean Air Task Force examines these unintended consequences and highlights the need for updated, comprehensive tools to analyze the true net impacts of policies that increase biofuels use.