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Additional tools
Fuel quality is an important element in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport. It ensures that air pollutant emissions from vehicles are optimally reduced; a single fuel market is established; and vehicles operate correctly everywhere in the EU. EU legislation requires a reduction of the greenhouse gas intensity of the fuels we use in our vehicles by up to 10% by 2020 – a Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The same legislation has previously required drastic reductions in the sulphur content of fuels, enabling the deployment of vehicle technologies to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, delivering substantial health and environmental benefits.
Some key elements of the adopted legislation are as follows:
Applicable fuels and intermediate targets
The legislation applies to all petrol and diesel used in road transport and gasoil used in non-road-mobile machinery. The 10% reduction target is made up of:
- a 6% reduction in the greenhouse gas intensity of fuels by 2020, with intermediate indicative targets of 2% by 2014 and 4% by 2017;
- an additional 2% reduction subject to developments in new technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS); and
- a further 2% reduction to come from the purchase of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits.
Suppliers can choose to group together to meet these targets jointly.
Baseline emissions for calculating reductions
The greenhouse gas intensity of fuels will be calculated on a life-cycle basis, meaning that the emissions from the extraction, processing and distribution of fuels are included. Life-cycle greenhouse gas emission reductions will be calculated from a 2010 baseline of fossil fuel greenhouse gas intensity.
Biofuel sustainability
For biofuels to count against the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets they must meet certain sustainability criteria set out in the Directive to minimise the undesired impacts from their production. These include that:
- the greenhouse gas emissions must be at least 35% lower than the fossil fuel comparator. From 2017 this increases to 50% and from 2018 the saving must be at least 60%;
- the raw materials for the biofuels can not be sourced from land with high biodiversity or high carbon stock.
Indirect land use change arising from biofuel use
As with fossil fuels, the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels should be calculated on a life-cycle basis. Emissions from converting land to agricultural use can contribute significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel production.
Emissions from directly converting land to agricultural use for producing biofuels (direct land use change) must be reported under the current approach. However, increased demand for agricultural products for use in biofuel production may lead to more land being converted for agriculture elsewhere. This indirect land use change leads to increased emissions. It is important that the emissions from both direct and indirect land use change are included when comparing the greenhouse gas impacts of biofuels to the fossil fuels being replaced.
More information and useful documents relating to biofuels and indirect land use change can be found under the documentation and studies tabs above.
Non-GHG Fuel Quality
As well as setting targets to reduce the GHG intensity of fuels, the legislation also controls other elements of fuel quality primarily linked to air pollutant emissions. In 2001, sulphur content was over 50ppm for petrol and over 200ppm for diesel. In 2009 the average sulphur content of both types of fuel had fallen below 10ppm thanks to the mandatory introduction of sulphur-free fuels under this legislation.
Fuel quality monitoring reports can be found under the documentation tab above.