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Publish date: April 29, 2015
News
The deal will see an end to EU support to land-based, first generation biofuels, such as biodiesel from oilseed rape and palm oil, that compete with food production and can in some cases have higher life-cycle emissions than fossil fuels. This comes on the back of an earlier decision in reform of the EU State Aid Guidelines to end subsidies to such first generation biofuels after 2020.
This brings and end to years of unintended consequences resulting from the EU’s target of 10% renewable energy in the transport sector by 2020, which has been alrgely met with first generation biofuels. This target and incentives to reach it have led to unustainable biofuels production around the world causing environmental and social damange, including Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), the accounting for which was a key component of this deal.
But the ILUC accounting will not be as comprehensively included as initially asked for and first generation biofuels will still make up about half of the 10% target. The growing use of maize for biofuels, as well as the growing harvesting and burning of wood from precious natural forests for power production, is not addressed in this deal.
On a positive note, the deal will see more support for advanced biofuels, such as those produced from algae, for instance in the form of a subtarget. And this vote brings an end to several years of insecurity and political jockying, setting sights forward and away from unsutainable buiness as usual.
For more on the content of the deal, see here.
Throughout the past year, our mission at the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center has focused on two key, but intertwined issues—nuclear and radiation safety as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, and the worldwide influence of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, which itself is actively involved in the war and has participated in the occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
At the beginning of the year, reports in the German and Russian press suggested an approximate 70% increase in uranium imports from Russia to Germany in 2024. But does this reflect broader European trends? It does not. Overall, imports of uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia to Western countries actually dropped sharply in 2024. Unlike the situation in Germany, this is already an established trend.
A Lingen, Germany plant could begin producing nuclear fuel in cooperation with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which is directly involved in the war in Ukraine and occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.