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EU banning the transport solution with the lowest emissions over the lifecycle?
Would you like to not only reduce your own emissions while driving your car or transporting goods, but also compensate for others’ emissions? Yes, that is actually possible when you use biomethane. It is produced from local raw materials, able to reach zero emissions or even less (yes, less than zero). Existing infrastructure is used, the vehicles are reasonably priced and made in Europe. Europe is also on track to ramp up its biomethane production to 35 bcm (around 10% of the continent’s overall gas consumption in 2022) and further up to 150 bcm in 2050. So, is biomethane thus considered a perfect solution to finally curb emissions from the transport sectors? No, the European Union has decided to eventually get rid of biomethane in road transport use.
In May, the Council signed off the decarbonized gas market package, aimed at boosting production of renewable gases, and making the energy market more secure and consumer friendly.
The European Parliament supports a legally binding production target of 35 bcm biomethane by 2030. The objective of 35 bcm was introduced in the RePowerEU package, published in 2022 with the goal to rapidly decrease the EU’s energy dependency on Russia.
RePowerEU and the decarbonized gas market package originated from the European Commission’s directorate on energy, DG ENER. In the meantime, the Commission’s climate and transport departments DG CLIMA and DG MOVE were striving to push down the emissions of the transport sector, which account for around a quarter of the overall greenhouse gas emissions of the EU.
And the different DGs in the Commission seem to have very different approaches to how emissions should be cut.
While DG MOVE focused on lifecycle emissions and applied the so-called well-to-wake system in its FuelEU Maritime legislation aiming to cut the emissions of the shipping sector, DG CLIMA has relentlessly focused on tailpipe emissions in the road transport sector. The latter means that in 2035, cars and vans with combustion engines will no longer be eligible when aiming at zero-emission road transportation. In other words, the Commission is not only supporting electrification, but at the same time, it bans all other clean alternatives, even those with lower emissions over the lifecycle.
On top of the light-duty vehicles, DG CLIMA’s proposal to limit the tailpipe emissions of heavy-duty vehicles by 90% by 2040 was eventually approved by the Council in May, leaving only a niche share for internal combustion engines and solutions like biomethane, which is readily available and could bring immediate emissions reductions.
EU watering down national climate efforts?
At the national level, several EU countries across the continent consider biomethane as one of the key pillars to reduce transport emissions. In Finland and Sweden for example, biomethane has been seen as a win-win solution for the climate: a local, cost-efficient technology enabling a circular economy. When waste and residues, otherwise causing greenhouse gas emissions, are used to make biomethane, negative emissions – i.e. less-than-zero – can be reached.
According to the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the Finnish potential of biomethane production from waste and residues is 10,2 TWh while the overall consumption in the transport sector is some 42 TWh. Finland could thus power around a quarter of the transport sector by biomethane. Gas vehicles and trucks are also affordable, , making it possible for all citizens and logistics companies to contribute to the emission reduction efforts.
Lifecycle emissions – that’s what matters for the climate
To ensure that also short-term targets (2030) can be reached, the EU should abstain from banning existing clean transport solutions. Biomethane is not a silver bullet – no fuel or solution is – but it can make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of road transport. When produced from waste it can even reach less than zero lifecycle emissions.
The next Commission was tasked by the Council to develop a methodology for vehicles running exclusively on CO2 neutral fuels by the end of 2025, and to develop a methodology to assess the full CO2 life cycle emissions of heavy-duty vehicles by 2027.
Policymakers should avoid over regulation and instead build a coherent, long-term and stable legislative framework that enables different technologies to compete at a level-playing field towards the EU goal of climate neutrality in 2050. The focus should be on lifecycle emissions as that is what counts for the climate in the end. If the EU wants to be serious about decreasing greenhouse gas emissions of the transport sector, it cannot ban one of the best solutions from a lifecycle perspective – biomethane.
Column writer Juha Ala-Huikku is Public Affairs Manager at Gasum.
