BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's $13 billion biodiesel industry could be undermined by EU plans to tackle the unwanted side effects of biofuel production, after studies showed few climate benefits, four papers obtained by Reuters show.
The EU has been arguing for two years over the extent of indirect damage to the environment caused by setting a target of increasing biofuel use to 10 percent of all road fuels by 2020, and it is coming close to deciding how to act.
"The land use change effects make nearly half of the expected gains of shifting from fossil fuels to renewable biofuels disappear," said one of the leaked reports.
