A European Council document, seen by Reuters, shows that member states are considering reclassifying European biofuels to give new values for the greenhouse-gas savings they can achieve. For example, sugar beet ethanol would be described as having a greenhouse-gas saving of 52%, up from 35% in the European Commission’s initial calculations.
The European Parliament recently proposed clamping down on the use of biofuels due to concerns about their negative effects on world food prices.
Environmentalists say that biofuels made from grains and oilseeds have inflated food prices and have forced subsistence farmers into expanding agricultural land into rainforests and draining wetlands.
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