PANGEA signs letter ahead of this week’s European Council asking for special consideration of the transport sector in the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework.
The European Council will discuss on October 23rd – 24th the future of EU 2020-30 Climate and Energy Framework. In this context, the undersigned associations and companies representing all the steps of the EU biofuels chain would like to underline the following points:
- The EU transport sector, being largely dependent on fossil fuels and on massive fuel and crude oil imports needs a special consideration in the context of the forthcoming long term EU climate and transport perspectives.
- Promoting renewable energy sources and reducing GHG emissions in transport should be confirmed as a crucial strategic need for our long term EU strategic agenda. Reducing GHG and promoting renewables in EU transport is comparatively more difficult and costly than in any other sector. As a consequence, it is only in enhancing specific efforts in transport that we will be able to avoid an exponential increase in GHG emissions in this sector for the next decade.
- Without specific transport targets in the 2030 Energy Package, biofuels would disappear and EU transport emissions will soon be out of control, which would be unacceptable.
- Support to renewables and GHG emission reduction in transport should be confirmed and enhanced also after 2020, within a long term support period for the whole decade in order to also tackle efficiently, among others, the problem of the heavy dependence of transport on imports of fossil material, as well as EU refined fuel deficits.
- Finally, any mention about the inclusion (even facultative) of EU transport under the present ETS scheme should be avoided. Such inclusion is strongly rejected by our production chain, given that present and future levels of ETS allowances would be very unlikely to trigger the important efforts that need to be done to decarbonise EU transport. A recent study performed by Cambridge Econometrics for the European Climate Foundation [1], concluded that “Regulating road transport emissions by means of the ETS alone would result in emissions reductions of only around 1 percent by 2030 at current ETS prices”.
In this context we strongly suggest once again that EU Heads of State confirm the absolute need for specific EU renewables and emission targets in EU transport for the period 2020-30, also rejecting any kind of inclusion (even if facultative) of the transport sector under the framework of the ETS.
Raffealo Garofalo Robert Wright
Secretary General EBB Secretary General Epure
Meghan Sapp Nathalie Lecocq
Secretary General PANGEA Secretary General FEDIOL
Teresa Babuscio Philippe Dusser
Secretary-General COCERAL Secretary General EOA
[1] Cambridge Econometrics: “The Impact of Including the Road Transport Sector in the EU ETS, a Report for the European Climate Foundation”, October 14th 2014, (quote: “Regulating road transport emissions by means of the ETS alone would result in emissions reductions of only around 1 percent by 2030 at current ETS prices (…) this would be insufficient for the road transport sector to contribute proportionately to the EU’s stated goals for decarbonisation”.) – the full study is available here: Cambridge ETS transport – Study (2)rg.
