How biofuels can help deliver a ‘Clean Planet for All’ by 2050
With its new long-term strategy for decarbonisation, the European Commission has outlined a bold and ambitious vision for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Importantly, the Commission has acknowledged the vital importance of decarbonising transport, as well as the important role of advanced biofuels to achieving Europe’s long-term climate goals.
But there’s more to the story. In fact, all sustainable low-carbon fuels including both crop-based and advanced ethanol have a critical role to play to reach carbon neutrality. As the IEA and IRENA recently highlighted, a massive upscaling in the use of sustainable biofuels is essential to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
That is why it is so important the EU long-term strategy addresses how to effectively increase their share in the transport energy mix. In the case of European ethanol, which reduces GHG emissions by more than 70% on average compared to fossil fuels, and works in today’s cars and infrastructure, scaling up is a no-brainer.
In our position paper on the 2050 strategy, we call on EU policymakers to:
- Recognise that low carbon fuels must play an important role in decarbonising transport
- Ensure investment security and predictability for sustainable biofuels
- Ensure the swift revision of the Energy Taxation Directive, to make it a more efficient tool for environmental policy
- Reap the benefits of the bioeconomy, which is at the heart of the energy transition
- Support the deployment of carbon capture technologies
Read ePURE’s full position paper on the EU 2050 strategy here.