OpenLobby.EU
Explore

City of Stockholm, Environment and Health Committee

Stockholm MF

The City of Stockholm's Environment and Health Administration, MF, is the authority responsible for the environmental health of the City.

Lobbying Activity

Response to High and low Indirect Land-Use Change (ILUC) - risks biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels

8 Mar 2019

We were expecting the Commission take the initiative to explore the synergies between the policy areas climate, air quality, biodiversity, energy security, agriculture and rural development. A lot of the problems could be targeted by a thought-through policy for producing biofuels from the agricultural land that has been abandoned and is about to be abandoned. This delegated act could have been used for such a synergy work. We hope that the Commission will take other and ambitious steps to explore these opportunities. City of Stockholm would be happy to contribute to such an initiative. EU has abandoned 30 Mha agricultural land since 1990. This abandonment is the largest threat to biodiversity in Europe. 50 % of the red-listed species are dependent on continued agriculture, and the abandoned farms are more or less exactly the very same as are the most valuable for biodiversity. As EU (and the world) is already overproducing food, these farms need another crop than food to keep ongoing. There is currently no other crop than biofuel feedstock that could keep these farms alive as farms. Planting them with forest would dramatically reduce biodiversity and in many cases also totally ruin the topsoil from all future use as cropland (at least until next ice age). These 30 million ha could produce biogas and ethanol to • substitute 25 % of the current transport energy used • reduce climate impact with 80-95 % compared to fossil fuels • substitute imported soy meal (which often is from former rain forest) • produce a pure stream of bio-CO2 for use in alimentary sector or for BECCS • save the biodiversity dependent on mosaic agricuture landscape • run a pesticide-free agriculture (biogas/ethanol does not care if there is weed) • use low-protein varieties and keep fertilizer use down • keep cropland topsoil in trim for future use when more land may be needed (peak phosphorus, no fossil based fertilizers or pesticides + salification and draught in other parts of the world) • reduce oil import and increase energy security by creating an operating domestic system to use also in case of crisis • develop rural areas, creating jobs • incentivise development of cheap and simple biofuels and vehicles optimized for pure biofuels. (which also will be needed in the rest of the world)
Read full response