14.07.08: UKERC response to the Gallagher report

The Renewable Biofuels Agency issued this week the Gallagher report, a Review of the indirect effects of biofuels. The report was driven by new evidence suggesting that an increasing demand for biofuels might indirectly cause carbon emissions because of land use change, and concerns that demand for biofuels may be driving food insecurity by causing food commodity price increases.

UKERC response to the Gallagher report can be summarised in the following points:

• UKERC welcomes the report – in particular supporting the identification of gaps where further knowledge and research is required.
• UKERC supports the need of new methodologies that address the lack of critical evidence to asses the widescale impacts of both direct and indirect effects of biofuels.
• UKERC questions the stringent approach of using Green House Gases (GHG) emissions mitigation in one land use (Biofuels) but not in other land use types, such as food production.
• Globally, the potential of Biofuels is still high.

See below our full response.  

Counting the cost of carbon – UK Government pulls back on biofuel targets.

The publication of the Gallagher Report signals a slow down for the deployment of Biofuels as part of the UK commitment to the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO). The target of 5% liquid fuels by volume from renewable sources by 2010 is likely to be pushed back to 2013/14, when a sustainability standard may be mandatory. This standard would include the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for biofuel production and an assessment of indirect effects such as displaced land effects. However, the ability of the UK to initiate such a standard at an international scale looks unlikely at present given world trade agreements and EU policy, where a 10% target by energy for 2020 is still under consideration.

Despite the difficulties in implementation of a sustainable biofuel policy, UKERC welcomes the report – in particular supporting the identification of gaps where further knowledge and research is required to achieve the standard. In future, more emphasis will be placed on the ability of a particular biofuel to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and as such further research is required on assessing the life cycle carbon costs of bioenergy chains. UKERC has a role to play in developing adequate LCA approaches and how co-products may be dealt with in contrasting first and second generation biofuel crops, as identified in our working paper on LCA. Improved methodologies for assessments of N₂O fluxes from bioenergy crop soils and cultivated soil in general are also highlighted as a future research requirement since the validity of recent reports in this area was questioned.

The indirect effects of Biofuels have been widely reported, where the use of cultivated land for energy crops may displace food crops to pristine grassland or forest ecosystems. Again the report highlights a lack of critical evidence to assess the widescale impacts on land use displacement and the fact that these indirect effects are currently not included in LCA approaches. New methodologies are needed as are landscape-scale assessments of biomass capacity with respect to other ecosystem services, particularly biodiversity and water.

Given uncertainties over global food reserves and prices and the impacts of climate change, the deployment of biofuels looks less certain and we question the stringent approach of using GHG emissions mitigation in one land use (Biofuels) but not in others (arable cropping systems and pasture for example and farming practices in general). Globally, the potential of sustainable Biofuels is still high. Large tracts of marginal and degraded land could be available for Biofuels with the former Eastern Europe, South America sub-saharan Africa identified as areas of land surplus. Such land will not compete for food but global agreements are required to make this work. This remains a major challenge for Biofuels.