At a recent meeting, the 27 EU Commissioners sought a consensus on whether or not or how to factor in indirect land use change (ILUC) when calculating emissions from biofuels production. Under a potential compromise being developed by the energy and climate change units, the European Commission could propose increasing the proportion of emission savings that biofuels must achieve compared to conventional fuels to 60%. In this case no additional ILUC factor would be necessary. Under current legislation, biofuels need to save 35% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to fossil fuels. Biofuel plants which were operational on January 1, 2008 are exempt from this provision until April 1, 2013. The 35% threshold will increase to 50% in 2017 for existing plants, whereas new installations that come onstream in 2017 and later will need to achieve a 60% saving.
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