Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 148 together.

The 2009 renewable energy directive sets all member states a binding target that 10% of the energy used in the transport sector must come from renewable sources by 2020. The directive also requires that all bio-fuels used to meet the 10% target must comply with certain sustainability criteria. Specifically, they must not be made from feedstocks sourced from certain categories of land and must achieve certain greenhouse gas emissions reductions. This time last year, the EU Commission proposed a set of amendments to this directive and the fuel quality directive to mitigate the potential effects of indirect land use change occurring as a result of the use of certain bio-fuels. This sent a clear message to the market that second generation bio-fuels are preferable to land-based bio-fuels. One of the amendments proposed would limit the contribution that certain crop-based bio-fuels can make towards renewable energy targets for transport in EU member states.

The EU Commission considered that the scientific models used to quantify the indirect land use change emissions were insufficiently robust to incorporate binding indirect land use change factors in the sustainability criteria which would have precluded the use of bio-fuels with high direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. The Commission also considered that such an approach would require major industrial restructuring that would not be achievable within the 2020 timeframe. Therefore, the Commission proposal is that the requirement to incorporate greenhouse gas emissions factors for indirect land-use change is confined to the member states' reporting obligations with respect to emissions. The intention of this amendment is to introduce greater transparency and highlight the relative performances of different categories of bio-fuels in terms of their ability to reduce carbon emissions.

I share the concerns being expressed that bio-fuel production and its use, unless properly regulated, could impact negatively on food production and on food prices. I also acknowledge that those bio-fuels could also lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions, which would be contrary to one of the objectives of the renewable energy directive. At the Energy Council meeting earlier this year, I conveyed the need for member states to be cognisant in the discussion of the proposed amendments of the potentially adverse impacts of bio-fuels on land use in developing countries. In this regard, Ireland has argued for a restriction on first generation bio-fuels and for incentives to encourage the development of advanced bio-fuels that do not affect food production. Ireland’s preference is for a cap that is as low as can be realistically achieved to mitigate the potential conflict between bio-fuel use in the EU and land use in the developing world, and the potential for higher greenhouse gas emissions from certain categories of bio-fuels.

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