In a recent report published in Nature Climate Change, a team of experts from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) highlighted a crucial paradox within the biofuels industry. Despite the growing demand for these modern biofuels as a measure to counter climate emissions, these "green" alternatives are far from being climate-neutral. Current land-use regulations, or the lack thereof, might lead to an alarming increase in CO2 emissions—potentially exceeding those from burning fossil diesel, due to extensive land clearing for biomass cultivation. This calls for urgent policy reform, the study suggests.

Leon Merfort, the study's lead author, sheds light on the predicament: "The state of current global land regulation is inadequate to control land-use-change emissions from modern biofuels." He adds, "If cultivation for bioenergy grasses is not strictly limited to marginal or abandoned land, food production could shift, and agricultural land use expands into natural land. This would cause substantial carbon dioxide emissions due to forest clearing in regions with weak or no land regulation”.

The intricacies of bioenergy's indirect effects pose a complex challenge for policymakers as they grapple with a regulatory gap. Globally interconnected food and bioenergy markets aren't easily controlled by national policies. Sadly, this gap leads to cheap bioenergy supply, causing an acceleration in the phase-out of fossil fuels in the energy sector. This inadvertently leads to a rise in demand for bioenergy and creates a vicious cycle.

The research team employed a meticulous approach to explore this intricate issue. They coupled energy and land system models to derive alternative transformation pathways consistent with limiting global warming to well below 2 °C. They then compared these scenarios with a corresponding counterfactual scenario with no bioenergy production—consequently lower land-use-change emissions—to derive emission factors.

"Using the global integrated assessment model REMIND-MAgPIE, we derive a biofuel emission factor (EF) for different policy frameworks. We find that a uniform price on emissions from both sectors keeps biofuel emissions at 12 kg CO2 GJ⁻¹,” the authors wrote. “However, without land-use regulation, the EF increases substantially (64 kg CO2 GJ⁻¹ over 80 years, 92 kg CO2 GJ⁻¹ over 30 years). We also find that comprehensive coverage (>90%) of carbon-rich land areas worldwide is key to containing land-use emissions. Pricing emissions indirectly on the level of bioenergy consumption reduces total emissions by cutting bioenergy demand but fails to reduce the average EF.” 

Florian Humpenöder, a co-author of the study, emphasizes the gravity of the situation: "We find that without additional land-use regulation, land clearing related to the production of modern biofuels results in CO2 emission factors—averaged over a 30-year period—that are higher than those from burning fossil diesel”. He further underlines the importance of a paradigm shift in land-use policy towards comprehensive land protection or carbon pricing scheme.

Highlighting the economic impact of these policies, co-author Nico Bauer points out that phasing out fossil fuels could result in demands for bioenergy worth hundreds of billions of dollars by mid-century. He suggests that while the agricultural sector may seize these new opportunities, potential expansion into high-yield areas could lead to high upfront CO2 emissions from land conversion.

To address these challenges, the study suggests a comprehensive carbon pricing scheme and almost absolute protection of global forests. Bauer explains: “Our results show that bioenergy can be produced with limited emissions under effective land-use regulations. Yet, if the regulatory gap remains wide open, bioenergy will not be part of the solution to mitigate climate change, but part of the problem.”