An unpublished working paper by the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) gives a damning overview of EU plans to raise the share of biofuels in transport to 10% by 2020.
According to the cost-benefit analysis, which has not been formally approved by the Commission, the policy will be exceedingly costly and will neither lead to substantial greenhouse gas savings nor to job creation.
- Greenhouse gas savings:
"The uncertainty is too great to say whether the EU 10% biofuels target will save greenhouse gas or not," the study states. According to its figures, the indirect emissions caused by the conversion of arable or forest land to biofuels and the displacement of farming for food and feed outside the EU could potentially "negate the savings from conventional EU biofuels". It adds: "Certification schemes help, but cannot prevent the problem."
The study further adds that "the decision to specifically target greenhouse gas reductions in the transport sector reduces the benefits which could be achieved in other ways with the same EU resources" because, in terms of greenhouse gas reduction per hectare of land, "it is substantially more efficient to use the biomass to generate electricity than to produce conventional biofuels".
- Employment:
The report highlights that expected job creation from increased biofuels production risks being little more than "wishful thinking", as jobs created in the biofuels sector are likely to be offset by job destruction in other sectors affected by the biofuels target, making the net employment effect of the programme "insignificant."
- Cost-benefit:
"The costs [of the target] will almost certainly outweigh the benefits," states the analysis, which calculates that "the decrease in welfare caused by imposing a biofuel target is between 33 and 65 billion euros within an 80% probability range".
