Commission asks stakeholders for feedback on ways to achieve biofuel targets
The European Commission has opened a public consultation on ways to achieve the biofuels targets it set out in its recently adopted Energy Policy for Europe. One of the central aims of the policy is to see 20% of the EU's energy coming from renewable sources by 2020. The effort to reach this binding target would be shared between Member States. Also proposed is a binding target of 10% for the share of biofuels in petrol and diesel in each Member State by 2020, to be accompanied by the introduction of a sustainability scheme for biofuels. The Commission is now drafting proposals, some of which are outlined in the consultation paper, to incorporate these targets in legislation. Stakeholders such as public authorities, businesses, non-governmental organisations and other interested parties, are asked to give their views on these proposals and answer some of the following questions: - How should a biofuel sustainability system be designed? - How should overall effects on land use be monitored? - How should the use of second-generation biofuels be encouraged? - What further action is needed to make it possible to achieve a 10% biofuel share? The feedback from two earlier consultative exercises, one on heating and cooling and biofuels and another on administrative obstacles to the increased use of renewable energy in electricity generation, will also be taken into account when drafting the legislation.