The European Commission on Tuesday defended its policy to promote biofuels, which has been criticized as a contributing factor to the global food price rise.
In a strategy to tackle rising global food prices, the commission failed to drop the European Union (EU) biofuels target.
Instead, it called for the promotion of sustainable criteria for biofuels and development of future generations of biofuels in Europe.
"With or without the EU's ten percent target, there will be a further increase in the worldwide production of biofuels," the commission said.
EU leaders agreed last March to increase the use of biofuels, setting a mandatory target for the 27-nation bloc to raise the share of biofuels in transport sector to 10 percent by 2020.
"In the transport sector today, the only alternative to non-sustainable fossil fuel is biofuel," the commission said.
"The EU objective for sustainable biofuels has a decisive role to play in enabling the EU to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020," it added.
The EU sustainability scheme for biofuels is currently under discussion by member states and the European Parliament, which the commission said would ensure that biofuels production has no damaging side-effects.
Also on Tuesday, the commission proposed in a plan to reform the EU's common agricultural policy to scrap in 2010 a 45 euro perhectare subsidy paid to farmers for growing crops used to make biofuels.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article