Europe rethinks biofuels as climate-change remedy

BRUSSELS, Belgium — European officials have proposed scaling back dramatically their goal of increasing Europe's use of biofuels, a major about-face on a central environmental and energy issue.

At the same time, a new report by the British government cast fresh doubt on fuels made from crops as a way to fight climate change.

Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world in the use of biofuels, aiming to derive 10 percent of Europe's transportation fuels from biofuels by 2020. But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed by the European Union (EU) are contributing to deforestation, which speeds climate change, and helping force up food prices.

"I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. "It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets."

In the United States, one-quarter of the corn crop goes to biofuels. An energy bill passed last year requires that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022, but criticism of the policy is growing, including calls to end tax breaks for corn-based ethanol.

A major reason is that over the past 18 months, studies have shown that the present generation of biofuels — reliant on food crops like canola, corn and soybeans — helps drive up food prices by using agricultural land, as well as aggravating deforestation, and may be worse for the climate than conventional oil, once the cost of production and transport are taken into account.

Most of the world's biofuel is extracted from corn in the United States, sugar-cane in Brazil, and both grain and oil-seed crops in Europe.

Europe's reversal on biofuels had gained significant momentum in recent days. Over the weekend, energy ministers gave one of their strongest signs that EU governments were prepared to back away from the 10 percent target. "We have to decide if the quota can be kept," Jochen Homann, the German economics minister, said Saturday in Paris. "It might be changed."

Britain, one of the biggest proponents of increased biofuel use, signaled a new course Monday. Ruth Kelly, the British transport minister, said the introduction of biofuels should be slowed down, citing a newly released report warning that targets for biofuel production could increase pollution and poverty.

The Environment Committee of the European Parliament voted Monday for a biofuels-policy shift, sending the proposal to the full Parliament. Members of each major political bloc on the committee called for a much lower target — 4 percent — and said the measures should be reviewed in 2015 before any decision to ratchet up that target to between 8 and 10 percent.

Although the environment committee's vote is not binding, it will add to pressure on the European Commission to issue a revised proposal, said Delgado, the Breugel expert.