Biofuels in the Renewable Energy Directive – the final call

Géraldine Kutas — posted 16/05/2018

On 17 May representatives of the European Parliament, member states and the European Commission will meet to negotiate the provisions on biofuels in the Renewables Directive (RED II).

This might be the last chance to find a compromise that ensures the future of a technology that is critical to reduce carbon emissions in transport. The European Parliament and member states have improved on the initial proposal by the European Commission, but more needs to be done.

Let’s start with the good news. The Parliament and Council have included a renewables target for transport.  Transport accounts for about 25% of total EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is one of the few sectors that has increased emissions over the last 25 years. An ambitious target is therefore necessary to seriously tackle emissions in this sector. The respective 12% and 14% targets proposed by Parliament and Council might not be ambitious enough but are steps in the right direction.

The attempt by the European Commission to cut the cap of crop-based biofuels to 3.8% would have provoked the end of a technology in Europe that until now is the only one that has had some real impact on limiting GHG emissions in road transport. By effectively killing the industry, the 3.8% target would also have destroyed any hope of ever scaling up production of next-generation biofuels. That cap needs to be maintained at 7%.

But the Council’s proposal of allowing member states to reduce their renewable targets in transport and individually set lower caps on plant-based biofuels is wrongheaded. It will fragment the market and fundamentally undermine the decarbonisation of transport in Europe. In addition, the proposal for multiple counting for certain alternative fuels is also a very bad idea. This is just an accounting ruse that would drastically reduce the ambitions and effectiveness of REDII. A better way to incentivise alternative fuels that need extra support would be through appropriate targets.

The Bulgarian presidency’s attempt to bridge the gulf between the European Parliament and Council is to be commended, but unfortunately the wording will satisfy no-one, as it is extremely vague and creates massive uncertainty. Suggesting that member states be allowed to set lower limits for biofuels that lead to deforestation or use of land with high carbon stock if they also set lower limits for biofuels that can be considered close substitutes is vague in the extreme. Without a clear definition of what is meant by close substitute, this will create uncertainty for investors and importers.

In the proposed compromise, biofuels with a low ILUC risk would be excluded from the lower limits EU members would be allowed to set. But no clear definition and criteria of what is a low ILUC risk biofuel exit and developing such definition proves extremely difficult. It would require reliable and transparent ILUC assessments that until now have been absent. According to the GLOBIOM study which is based on data that are 8 years old, Brazilian sugarcane, for example, is among the crop-based feedstocks with the lowest ILUC emissions, but there are no clear criteria to understand whether this would be considered a low-ILUC feedstock. Clearly, carbon saving potential is the only reasonable criteria for the sustainability of biofuels.

The idea of basing the lower limits for biofuels on European Commission bioenergy sustainability reports is simply wrong. What is the legitimacy of the EU to assess foreign nation’s fight against deforestation? Such an approach would represent a dangerous infringement upon the governance and sovereignty of independent nations by the EU. Any such an assessment should be based on one of the many existing certification schemes that are respected by industry and third countries alike, and recognized by the European Commission.

Brazilian sugarcane ethanol has proven unambiguously the massive contribution that certain biofuels can make in the fight against climate change. In 13 years Brazil reduced its carbon emissions  in the transport sector by more than 400 million tonnes thanks to bioethanol, that’s almost five times the performance of the EU.

Thursday 17 May will be a tough day for the negotiators who still have a lot of work to do to achieve a workable solution. This is their last chance to get it right.

* Article originally published in the online version of The Parliament Magazine

Free, fair and open trade – only if it suits?

Géraldine Kutas — posted 03/05/2018

The EU has the opportunity to close two major trade deals in 2018: with Mexico, on which it just reached political agreement; and with the Mercosur trading block, where an agreement lies tantalizingly within reach. The EU’s recent success in closing major trade agreements, such as with Canada and Japan, has been seen as a clear indication of its commitment to free, fair and open trade.

An agreement with Mexico and Mercosur would certainly be a good outcome for Europe, but whether this makes the EU an advocate of “fair and free” trade is moot. As always, it is in the politically-sensitive issue of Europe’s agriculture sector where the EU often comes undone in its mantra of fair and free trade, faced with the reality of actually opening its agricultural market up to competition.

Sugar and ethanol are a case in point: with Mexico, the EU has agreed a quota on ethanol of 25,000 tonnes phased in over five years, equaling around 33m litres. This is just 0.5% of the EU’s production of 6.5bn litres in 2016.  The EU has offered Mexico a quota of 30,000 tonnes of unrefined sugar, with a tariff of €49 per tonne phased in over three years. Again, this is only a fraction of the EU’s sugar production, estimated at 20m tonnes in 2017-18, and a tariff of €49/tonne will make it impossible for Mexican sugar to compete with the European sweetener in the EU market. So in reality the deal actually provides no market access at all for Mexican sugar.

In the EU-Mercosur negotiations a similar picture is emerging. The EU’s offers so far have been far from acceptable for Mercosur. The EU has offered a €98/tonnetariff within a quota of 100,000 tonnes. Only if the tariff were reduced to level the competitive field (another EU mantra) would the offer be fair.

It was clear from the outset that getting a reasonable deal on sugar and ethanol was among the key issues for Mercosur. As the Brazilian chief negotiator has said, he cannot come home without an offer on these two products on the table. The Mercosur agricultural sector has always supported the deal but this support cannot be taken for granted if the deal does not provide for real market access.

The deal will provide long-term benefits for Mercosur such as the better integration into global supply chains and improved efficiency and competitiveness. However, in order to sell the deal at home the bloc needs short-term gains in sectors that generate jobs. That is why access to the EU agricultural market would be so important.

An EU-Mercosur deal will greatly improve market access for European added-value products and services, and will give European businesses a first-mover advantage in a market of some 250m consumers. It will protect geographic indication for hundreds of European agricultural products and ensure high sustainability standards. These are major achievements.

For Mercosur the main economic interest lies in agricultural exports. If the EU is not prepared to allow a level playing field in this, Mercosur could well walk away from a deal. In that case it’s not only European businesses that would lose. The EU’s credibility of promoting free and fair trade would be seriously undermined, as it would be clear that its appetite for free and fair trade goes only so far as its vested interests are not impacted.

Thoughts on Brazil’s Temporary Tariff-Rate Quota for Ethanol

Leticia Phillips — posted 03/04/2018

As the world’s largest ethanol producers, the U.S. and Brazil enjoy the benefits of trading biofuels. Our two countries have worked together for many years to build a global biofuels market that provides clean, affordable and sustainable solutions to our planet’s growing energy needs.

That’s why many observers were surprised last year when Brazil imposed a limit on duty free ethanol imports. With the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) policy in place since September, let’s take a closer look at this temporary solution to what UNICA hopes will be a temporary problem.

The Context
China and Europe recently closed their biofuel markets, making Brazil the only major market that was open to receive excess ethanol supplies. Because of this domino effect, ethanol imports to Brazil skyrocketed in 2017. Brazil received triple the amount of foreign ethanol last year than it did in 2016 and five times more than 2015 imports.

Long term, UNICA wants to address this challenge by removing trade barriers and working with other international leaders to expand free trade of biofuels. But in the short term, Brazil’s government needed to act for two reasons:

• Environmental: Brazil intends to fulfill its commitments made under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and had to safeguard against displacing lower-carbon fuels with higher-carbon fuels.

• Economic: The Brazilian sugarcane sector generates nearly 1 million direct jobs and is still recovering from a crippling financial crisis during which approximately 20 percent of sugarcane mills closed.

A Fair Compromise
As Brazilian officials mulled options for how best to respond, UNICA worked to moderate extreme positions and produce a fair compromise. We advocated—and the Brazilian government adopted—a temporary response that still allows a large volume of duty-free exports into Brazil.

Up to 158.5 million gallons of foreign ethanol can still enter Brazil annually without paying any import tax. For two years starting last September, volumes above that amount will pay a 20 percent tax. But there is no limit on the total volume of foreign ethanol that can be exported to Brazil.

The annual duty-free limit of 158.5 million gallons equals Brazil’s average annual ethanol imports from 2014 to 2016. In practice, the TRQ maintains what was the status quo before the 2017 spike, while protecting Brazil’s environment and economy from such an unwelcome surge generated by other closed markets. UNICA views this temporary response as a reasonable compromise that moderates what would have been harsher alternatives, such as imposing a 20 percent import tax on all ethanol as allowed by Mercosur policy.

The duty-free limit resets quarterly, and so far, the TRQ system appears to be working as intended. During the first three months under the new policy (September to November 2017), Brazil imported the maximum 39.6 million gallons allowed to enter duty free each quarter. An additional 26.7 million gallons also entered the country during that time, with a 20 percent import tax.

What’s Next
UNICA remains committed to removing trade barriers and working together with other biofuel leaders toward our ultimate goal of a global market for clean, renewable fuels. For starters, we will continue to collaborate with our allies and competitors on opening Asian markets, which should generate billions of gallons of new demand.

Opening the closed U.S. market for sugar also would help. While our American friends tend to view sugar and ethanol policy as unrelated issues, the lack of open trading partners for sugar directly pressures sugarcane ethanol producers in Brazil, especially those in the northeast. This region is economically underdeveloped but politically influential in the capital city of Brasilia. Producers in the northeast were some of the loudest voices calling for a tariff on imported ethanol and would most directly benefit from access to larger sugar quotas on the international market.

Finally, our organization is optimistic that RenovaBio—a new program in Brazil modeled on both the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard—will be a game changer. By providing more predictability for investors and incentives for technological innovation, RenovaBio should stabilize Brazil’s sugarcane sector and benefit global biofuels players.

NOTE: This essay originally appeared in the April issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine.

Reflections from the FFA: There is no protection in protectionism

Géraldine Kutas — posted 03/04/2018

As every year, the 2018 edition of the Forum for the Future of Agriculture (FFA) which was held in Brussels last week was another impressive event. There are very few agriculture-focused events in Brussels of the same calibre that manage to gather such an impressive number of quality speakers, key opinion leaders, and such truly global representation. The debates and conversations that the forum provided for were really inspiring.

What stood out for me this year was the broad global perspective on agriculture that was the major focus of the discussions, shedding light on agricultural challenges in both the developing as well as the developed worlds. There was a clear message of the need for greater cooperation and trade among the different agricultural regions of the world, and I was personally encouraged to hear Commission Vice-President, Frans Timmermans, extoll the virtues of freer agricultural trade and reconfirmed that there is no protection in protectionism.

We strongly support that view, and this is just the kind of thinking we all need to adopt to get the ambitious EU-Mercosur trade deal over the finish line – hopefully before the summer! The great potential of Brazilian sugarcane to provide food, low-carbon energy and bio-plastics to the benefit of the world will not be realised if it stays blocked in Brazil.

Brazilian sugarcane is a low-carbon crop whose sustainability has long been proven and that has many useful applications as we transition towards a more circular, low-carbon economy: it provides the sugar demanded by the thriving European food and drink industry; it provides 1G and 2G ethanol for low-carbon road transportation; it is the source of bio-based products that will help reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of plastics and lubricants; and it also provides for renewable electricity generation.

That the two major global household brands of Lego and Ikea recently announced that they would be turning to sugarcane as a source material for their bricks and sandwich bags is testament not just to its versatility, but to how it is destined to become a critical component of our daily lives.

At the FFA it was very encouraging to see that there is a genuine interest in the many products derived from sugarcane, and I am very optimistic that this versatile feedstock will contribute much more to global sustainability in the future. The many global challenges discussed at the FFA can only be tackled through global responses, and as Mr Timmermans said, these are not possible without freer trade in agriculture. That would allow the innovative solutions such as those provided by Brazilian sugarcane to be deployed around the world to the benefit of everyone.

An EU-Mercosur trade deal: A balancing act

Géraldine Kutas — posted 21/02/2018

The negotiators for the EU-Mercosur trade deal are doing an impressive job. This Tuesday started the third week of full time negotiations since the beginning of February, only interrupted by Carnival.

The negotiators clearly see what they are fighting for and the EU-Mercosur deal is a worthwhile prize: the largest bilateral trade deal yet, connecting two markets of almost 800m consumers and at the same time setting a signal against the protectionist tendencies pushed by the Trump administration.

However, now that it is getting down to the prime cuts of the deal (beyond beef), no side wants to give ground easily, and rightly so. While both sides know that the deal is overall beneficial, it is also about very specific economic interests and in the end it is critical that the outcome is balanced.

Europeans can rest assured; the European Commission has so far done a very good job in protecting EU interests:

– European agricultural products will be protected through tariff-rate quotas and geographic indications;
– European standards on food safety and many other product groups will be applied and;
– Import tariffs into Mercosur will be drastically reduced in many EU key sectors such as machinery, automotive, services, and agricultural products.

Altogether the tariff reductions for EU imports amount to €4bn, in contrast the tariff reductions for Mercosur products into the EU only amount to €1bn.

While the benefits of a trade deal go far beyond tariff reductions, these numbers indicate that the EU stands to gain much more than it is giving up, and should therefore push forward.

However, some of the current offers are not satisfactory. The EU proposal for sugar of a 100,000 tonnes tariff quota at a reduced tariff of €98/t only gives market access in theory as the intra-quota tariff is too high, especially after the EU sugar reform, to make Brazilian sugar competitive in the European Market.

Despite the fact that Brazil is the largest exporter of sugar it only provides 4% to the European market. This is also to the disadvantage of the European food and drink industry as well as the bio-based industry that would benefit of a larger variety of sugar supply. In order to be closer to the mark the intra-quota tariff needs to be eliminated. Note than all the EU free trade agreement involving sugar provides for a duty-free quota. Why should it be anything different for Mercosur?

Ethanol is another sector where the EU should offer more. The EU chemical industry is asking for a duty-free access to Brazilian ethanol. Denying this will simply hampered the development of the bio-economy in Europe.

If the EU expects Mercosur to open up its markets for products where the EU has a competitive advantage, Mercosur has a rightful interest in gaining actual market access for its key products. Why should they otherwise open up their economies to the European industrial powerhouses?

All sides have to understand that the deal needs to be sold as a success at home. If Mercosur countries see that the EU is not prepared to make concessions in the sectors that really matter to them, they could move their focus to the other ongoing trade negotiations with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Canada that might seem like lower hanging fruits.