EEASC says EU double counting biofuels carbon savings

In the EU, the European Environment Agency Scientific Committee, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune, has issued an opinion that biofuels carbon savings should only be counted if they represent incremental savings over what would have been absorbed by existing cropland, forests and grasslands. The scientists said that the EU has been “double counting” the savings achieved by biofuels projects. The group said that EU regulations “need to be reviewed to encourage bioenergy use only from additional biomass that reduces greenhouse gas emissions,” and key in on biomass that would ““maintain or build carbon stocks in plants and soils”.