Researchers revise 'overestimated' biofuels subsidies

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an environmental consultancy, apologised “for the error and any confusion it has caused”.

The original IISD research calculated that biofuels received between €9.3 and €10.7 billion of public support in 2011. This figure exceeded the amount of private capital invested in the industry.

The consultancy issued on Friday (23 August) an addendum to the study 'Biofuels: At What Cost?', released in April, revising downwards its estimate of the tax exemptions the industry received the same year, from €5.8 billion to between €2 and €2.5bn.

But the IISD has kept its estimated level of public support making up the rest of the original subsidies total the same, reducing the net figure by just €3.7 bn.

A number of MEPs and NGOs had touted the figure as evidence of the unsustainability of certain biofuels. To Jos Dings, the director of Transport and Environment (T&E), a green campaign group which had used the number, the estimate remains large.

"It's a regrettable mistake from the part of the consultants. But what must be stressed is that the revised estimate of EU biofuels subsidies does not change the fundamental issue: we, in Europe, are wasting a huge amount of money to support biofuels that often do more harm than good to the environment," he told EurActiv in an email.

The study was also recently deemed incorrect by the environmental consultancy, Ecofys. Ecofys is a well-respected environmental consultancy used by both sides of the heated biofuels debate, a fact which may lend credence to their review of the data, which was commissioned by the Association of the German Biofuels Industry (VDB).

But Ecofys admitted that their calculation, which estimated that the IISD figure for biofuels subsidies may have been overblown by some 50 to 60%, may have lacked rigour.

“Although the review of Ecofys was only conducted on a rough basis, the roughness of our assessment does not explain the differences in the outcomes,” said Matthias Spöttle, the Ecofys researcher responsible for the review.

“We conclude that the outcomes of the study on biofuels' subsidies should be critically questioned.”

Read the entire article at EurActive.com.