"The 40 percent target of greenhouse gas reduction cannot be achieved without a strong contribution from the transport sector – biofuels will be an essential part of this challenge,” said Marie Donnelly, the director of the group.
European Parliament member Nils Torvalds agreed, saying a bridge needs to be built between ILUC debate and an actual 2030 policy on reducing transport emissions.
"The industry needs long term security,” Torvalds said.
Marko Janhunen, chair of LSB and Vice President at UPM Biorefining, said dialogues like the one that occurred are essential to the future of the advanced biofuels industry.
"We feel there is too little understanding on the opportunities of advanced biofuels," Janhunen said. "Climate action, energy security and innovation are key topics in the EU today. We want to contribute to the debate by showing that advanced biofuels can play an integral part of Europe’s energy mix and our joint efforts to reduce transport emissions.”
According to LSB, hundreds of millions of euros has been spent in Europe on research to develop technologies for advanced biofuels. However, now that the time is ripe for commercialization of new technologies, the lack of regulatory certainty is holding back investment in these areas.
"As the rest of the world is moving forward with investment, the US and China in particular, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by not creating the right conditions for investments to materialize,” Janhunen said.
“The European Parliament now has a great opportunity to move things forward. By promoting the sub-target for advanced biofuels and making it more binding, and also by ensuring that policy measures go beyond 2020, we trust that investor confidence can be gained,” he added.
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