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"More cautious" biofuels approach needed

07/07/2008

The government has signalled that it will adopt "a more cautious approach" to biofuels following the latest scientific review of the energy source.

Transport secretary Ruth Kelly told MPs that the government will consult on slowing down the rate of increase in the controversial renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO).

This could result in the rate being slowed to 0.5 per cent per annum so that the RTFO reaches five per cent in 2013/14 rather than 2010/11 as currently planned.

Her announcement follows the publication of the Gallagher Review, conducted by Renewable Fuels Agency chairman Professor Ed Gallagher.

This concluded that while there is a future for a sustainable biofuels industry, the introduction of biofuels should be "significantly slowed" until controls are in place to limit negative effects of their production.

Harms associated with biofuel production include rising food prices, accelerated deforestation and an increase in climate change - one of the problems biofuels were originally believed to be able to help target.

"Given the uncertainty and potential concerns Professor Gallagher sets out, I believe it is right to adopt a more cautious approach until the evidence is clearer about the wider environmental and social effects of biofuels," Ms Kelly said.

She added that copies of the report will be sent to the relevant European commissioners and to all EU environment and transport ministers.

At the EU level the report concludes that a mandatory ten per cent renewable transport fuel target by 2020 is not presently justified by the scientific evidence, but that a target of between five and eight per cent by 2020 could be possible if a number of important conditions are fulfilled.

Responding to today's announcement, Friends of the Earth (FoE) called on the government to reconsider its biofuels obligation altogether.

"Feeding cars instead of people pushes up food prices and fuels deforestation," said an FoE biofuels campaigner.

"Gordon Brown's call for a moratorium on some biofuels is just tinkering at the margins.

"If we want to quit our expensive and damaging fossil fuel habit we need a new direction in transport - not a quick fix from biofuels. The government must ditch these targets and start helping Britons save petrol and cut emissions now."

Dr Mark Avery, conservation director of the RSPB, said the Gallagher review "should be used to put the brakes on biofuels".

"If it is not, the destruction of rainforest and grasslands will continue to enable biofuel production. And with that will come huge carbon emissions and widespread losses of wildlife," he added.

"The review's analysis of the biofuel problem is compelling but it should have done more to encourage the UK government to put right its hugely damaging biofuels policy. UK ministers must now do all they can to convince the EU it must freeze all plans for higher biofuels targets."