ePure says EU still ‘needs to do better’ after outlawing of palm oil

The EU Commission doubled down on their assault upon palm oil, releasing its Delegated Regulation over indirect land use change (ILUC).

In February, Biofuels International reported that ePure’s secretary general Emmanuel Desplechin argued that despite the original delegated draft’s promising goals of removing palm oil as a green fuel source, wording implied that certain palm oil sources could still be accepted as part of the Renewable Energy Directive (REDII).

“The delegated act aims for a harmonised implementation by Member States of the provisions on high and low ILUC-risk fuels ensuring that the share of high ILUC-risk fuels for which a significant expansion of the production area into land with high carbon stock is observed will be gradually reduced in all Member States' contributions to the renewable energy targets as required by the Directive,” the EU Commission stated in its release regarding the changes.

Despite the changes made in the delegated act, ePure still believes that the commission still ‘needs to do better on palm oil’, according to a release.

“Unfortunately the new text still leaves the door open for palm oil in Europe. When the Commission’s draft Delegated Regulation was first published last month, a broad coalition quickly formed against it – everyone from European farmers to NGOs and the European feedstock-based biofuels industry,” said Desplechin.

“The Commission heard our call and tweaked the text. But the Delegated Regulation ought to be about ensuring that European biofuels policy is no driver to deforestation and/or peatland drainage; whether the feedstock is produced by smallholders or large holders is irrelevant. The Commission needs to do better if it really wants to get palm oil out of the EU energy picture and instead focus on European biofuels that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without producing harmful side effects such as deforestation.”