The European Commission's draft EU Renewable Energy Directive,
published today, ignores numerous recent warnings on the
environmental and social damage of its proposed 10 per cent
target for agrofuel use in the transport sector by 2020. EU
member states had demanded that the 10 per cent target be met
'sustainably', but the EU Joint Research Centre and the UK
Parliament Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have expressed
strong doubts that this can be achieved. The EAC has also argued
for a moratorium on agrofuel targets. A coalition of civil
society groups have consistently called for the target to be
scrapped and for the EU to implement a moratorium on targets and
other incentives for agrofuel expansion. "The European
Commission's failure to act on the many warnings is shockingly
irresponsible," says Nina Holland of Corporate Europe
Observatory, a lobby watchdog group based in the Netherlands.
"Now it is up to the EU governments and the European Parliament
to ensure that the EU's 10 per cent target for agrofu