The European Commission's draft EU Renewable Energy Directive, published today, ignores numerous recent warnings on the environmental and social damage of its proposed 10 per cent target for agrofuel use in the transport sector by 2020.
EU member states had demanded that the 10 per cent target be met 'sustainably', but the EU Joint Research Centre and the UK Parliament Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have expressed strong doubts that this can be achieved. The EAC has also argued for a moratorium on agrofuel targets.
A coalition of civil society groups have consistently called for the target to be scrapped and for the EU to implement a moratorium on targets and other incentives for agrofuel expansion.
"The European Commission's failure to act on the many warnings is shockingly irresponsible," says Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory, a lobby watchdog group based in the Netherlands.
"Now it is up to the EU governments and the European Parliament to ensure that the EU's 10 per cent target for agrofuels is dropped and that a moratorium is introduced on all targets and incentives for agrofuels and agro-energy," says Helena Paul of Econexus, a public interest research organisation based in the UK.
See full Press Release.
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