What’s really behind EU support for crop-based biofuels?

POLITICO - With emissions scandals and concerns about urban air quality making headlines nearly every day, it is no wonder that people across Europe are calling for change in EU environmental and energy policy. The EU needs to decarbonize its transport sector to meet its climate change goals — and that is no easy task. Road transport is currently 94 percent reliant (84 percent of it imported) on oil and accounts for 22 percent of EU emissions. In its latest progress report on renewable energy the Commission admits there is “slow” progress in decarbonizing EU transport. Ambitious action is needed. But with its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), the European Commission seems to be going in a different direction. The Commission wants to phase out one of the EU’s best options for reducing greenhouse gases and decarbonizing transport: conventional biofuels like ethanol, a renewable, clean-burning fuel made from corn, wheat and sugar beet grown sustainably in Europe.