New report “The Missing Indirect Land-Use Change Factors” from the ‘European Forum for Sustainable Development’

EFNE‘s report reviews the modelling of indirect land use change (iLUC) from biofuels, following similar studies from JRC, USDA, Ecofys and others. Highlighting variation in modelling outputs, the report argues against the use of iLUC factors on the basis of the precautionary principle (the report does not consider the wider question of whether biofuel support policies should be reconsidered if uncertainty about iLUC is substantial). The Chair of EFNE, Dr. Gernot Pehnelt, is a colleague of Alan Oxley at ECIPE and has in the past been an outspoken critic of European biofuel sustainability measures (arguing that they represent trade barriers), and in particular a supporter of palm oil (a 2010 report was supportive of the idea of classifying #palm plantations as forests under #REDFQD). The new report asserts that palm oil biodiesel has low iLUC emissions and would be favoured by feedstock specific iLUC factors – however, with an increasing focus in new modelling by IFPRI on the strong link between palm oil and extremely high emissions from peat degradation (c.f. this ICCT presentation), the opposite is likely to be the case. Report: http://8607.cleverreach.de/c/3105372/b5qp.