24.02.2022

DUH study: Denial of the positive climate balance of sustainable biofuels

In its recently published study "Agrofuels", Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) argues that the use of biofuels does not benefit the climate, but harms it, and at the same time calls for the subsidisation of biofuels to be abolished. From DUH's point of view, to generate the amount of energy needed for transport, as biofuels have been providing up to now, solar plants should be installed and the areas currently used for the cultivation of raw materials for biofuel production should be renatured. In fact, sustainable domestic biofuels from cultivated biomass and residues will continue to play a key role in the decarbonisation of road transport in the coming decades; without them, it will hardly be possible to ensure the security of energy supply or to achieve the ambitious climate targets of the German government in the transport sector. According to the Federal Agency for Food and Agriculture (BLE), the use of biodiesel, bioethanol and biomethane reduced CO2 emissions by 13.2 million tonnes in 2020.