Adonis hints UK is wavering on biofuel targets

The government has indicated it could scale back biofuel adoption targets, in response to continued concern that soaring demand for plant-derived fuels is having an adverse effect on biodiversity and food prices worldwide.

Transport minister Lord Adonis today formally accepted the recommendations of the Gallagher Review and proposed that the government's biofuel targets should be delayed so that biofuels make up five per cent of transport fuel used in the UK by 2013-14, rather than 2010-11.

Under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), the UK has to meet legally binding targets designed to increase the amount of biofuel used by the transport sector.

However, earlier this year the UK government-backed Gallagher Review concluded that there is a risk that the uncontrolled increase in the use of biofuels could drive unsustainable land use change.

It said that soaring demand for energy crops such as corn, sugar cane, palm oil and soya, could drive up food prices and increase pressure on farmers in tropical countries to clear areas of rainforest to make way for plantations – resulting in a net increase in carbon emissions.

Signalling his support for the report's findings earlier today, Adonis said that while there was a need to develop cleaner fuels, "we are clear that biofuels will only have a role to play in this if they are sustainably produced ".

The government is now set to consult on implementing the proposals in the review until 17 December, prior to making a definite decision.

The EU is also reportedly contemplating relaxing its 10 per cent biofuel target by 2020 in light of the Gallagher review.

Supporters of biofuels argue that because they are obtained from crops that soak up carbon as they grow and are therefore "carbon neutral".

However, critics have repeatedly claimed that biofuel targets adopted by the UK, US and EU have indirectly led to food shortages, rising prices and negligible carbon savings.

A report from UN Energy last year concluded that EU and US biofuel targets were having a noticeable impact on landscape use, particularly in Brazil and Indonesia, as farmers cleared forests and food crops to make way for production of energy crops.

Head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick has also lent his voice to the growing disquiet over biofuels, arguing recently that, along with an expanding, meat eating, middle class in China and India, biofuels were contributing to food price inflation that has seen process climb 83 per cent over three years.

In addition to this, a report the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington suggests that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global food prices.

Separately, Adonis today unveiled £6m in fresh funding for research into second and third generation biofuels made from crops that do not affect agricultural land use as directly such as Jatropha and algae. The new funding is to be distributed by the Carbon Trust.