Directive 2009/30/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 amending Directive 98/70/EC as regards the specification of petrol, diesel and gas-oil and introducing a mechanism to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and amending Council Directive 1999/32/EC as regards the specification of fuel used by inland waterway vessels and repealing Directive 93/12/EEC (1)

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L 140/88 EN Official Journal of the European Union 5.6.2009

DIRECTIVE 2009/30/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 23 April 2009

amending Directive 98/70/EC as regards the specification of petrol, diesel and gas-oil and introducing a mechanism to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and amending Council Directive 1999/32/EC as regards the specification of fuel used by inland waterway vessels and repealing

Directive 93/12/EEC

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article  95 thereof and Article  175(1) thereof in relation to Article 1(5) and Article 2 of this Directive,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee

(1)

,

After consulting the Committee of the Regions,

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty

(2)

,

Whereas:

(1) Directive 98/70/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13  October 1998 relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels establishes minimum specifications for petrol and diesel fuels for use in road and non-road mobile applications for health and environmental reasons.

(2) One of the objectives laid down in the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme established by Decision No 1600/2002/EC

(3)

of 22 July 2002 is to achieve levels of air quality that do not give rise to significant negative impacts on, or risks to, human health and the environment. In its statement accompanying Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe

(4)

(5)

the Commission recognised the need to reduce emissions of harmful air pollutants if significant progress were to be made towards the objectives established in the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme and foresaw, in particular, new legislative proposals that would further reduce Member States' permitted national emissions of key pollutants, reduce emissions associated with refuelling of petrol cars at service stations and address the sulphur content of fuels, including marine fuels.

(3) The Community has committed itself under the Kyoto Protocol to greenhouse gas emission targets for the period 2008-2012. The Community has also committed itself by 2020 to a 30 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the context of a global agreement and a 20 % reduction unilaterally. All sectors will need to contribute to these goals.

(4) One aspect of greenhouse gas emissions from transport has been tackled through the Community policy on CO2

and cars. Transport fuel use makes a significant contribution to overall Community greenhouse gas emissions. Monitoring and reducing fuel life cycle greenhouse gas emissions can contribute to helping the Community meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals through the decarbonisation of transport fuel.

(5) The Community has adopted regulations limiting pollutant emissions from light and heavy duty road vehicles. The fuel specification is one of the factors that influence the ease with which such emission limits can be met.

(6) Derogations from the maximum summer petrol vapour pressure should be limited to those Member States with low ambient summer temperatures. It is therefore appropriate to clarify in which Member States a derogation should be permitted. These are, in principle, those Member States where the average temperature for a majority of their territory is below 12 °C for at least two of the three months of June, July and August.

(7) Directive 97/68/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16  December 1997 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery

(6)  OJ L 59, 27.2.1998, p. 1.

, sets emission limits for engines used in non-road mobile machinery. Fuel enabling the proper functioning of these engines needs to be provided for the operation of this machinery.

(8) The combustion of road transport fuel is responsible for around 20 % of Community greenhouse gas emissions. One approach to reducing these emissions is through reducing the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of these fuels. This can be done in a number of ways. In

(6)

(1)  OJ C 44, 16.2.2008, p. 53.

(2)  Opinion of the European Parliament of 17  December 2008 (not yet published in the Official Journal) and Council Decision of 6  April 2009.

(3)  OJ L 350, 28.12.1998, p. 58.

(4)  OJ L 242, 10.9.2002, p. 1.

(5)  OJ L 152, 11.6.2008, p. 43.

5.6.2009 EN Official Journal of the European Union L 140/89

view of the Community's ambition to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the significant contribution that road transport makes to those emissions, it is appropriate to establish a mechanism requiring fuel suppliers to report the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of the fuel that they supply and to reduce them from 2011 onwards. The methodology for the calculation of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels should be identical to that established for the purposes of the calculation of greenhouse gas impacts under Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources

(1)

.

(9) Suppliers should, by 31 December 2020, gradually reduce life cycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 10 % per unit of energy from fuel and energy supplied. This reduction should amount to at least 6 % by 31  December 2020, compared to the EU-average level of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy from fossil fuels in 2010, obtained through the use of biofuels, alternative fuels and reductions in flaring and venting at production sites. Subject to a review, it should comprise a further 2 % reduction obtained through the use of environmentally friendly carbon capture and storage technologies and electric vehicles and an additional further 2 % reduction obtained through the purchase of credits under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. These additional reductions should not be binding on Member States or fuel suppliers on entry into force of this Directive. The review should address their non-binding character.

(10) Biofuel production should be sustainable. Biofuels used for compliance with the greenhouse gas reduction targets laid down in this Directive should therefore be required to fulfil sustainability criteria. In order to ensure a coherent approach between energy and environment policies, and to avoid the additional costs to business and the environmental incoherence that would be associated with an inconsistent approach, it is essential to provide the same sustainability criteria for the use of biofuels for the purposes of this Directive on the one hand and Directive 2009/28/EC on the other. For the same reasons, double reporting should be avoided in this context. Furthermore, the Commission and competent national authorities should coordinate their activities within the framework of a committee specifically responsible for sustainability aspects.

(11) The increasing worldwide demand for biofuels, and the incentives for their use provided for in this Directive should not have the effect of encouraging the destruction of biodi­verse lands. Those finite resources, recognised in various international instruments to be of value to all mankind, should be preserved. Consumers in the Community would, in addition, find it morally unacceptable that their increased use of biofuels could have the effect of destroying biodiverse lands. For these reasons, it is necessary to provide sustainability criteria ensuring that biofuels can qualify for the incentives only when it can be guaranteed that they do not originate in biodiverse areas or, in the case of areas designated for nature protection purposes or for the protection or rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems or species, the relevant competent authority demonstrates that the production of the raw material does not interfere with those purposes. The sustainability criteria should consider forest as biodiverse where it is a primary forest in accordance with the definition used by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in its Global Forest Resource Assessment, which countries use worldwide to report on the extent of primary forest or where it is protected by national nature protection law. Areas where collection of non-wood forest products occurs should be included, provided the human impact is small. Other types of forests as defined by the FAO, such as modified natural forests, semi natural forests and plantations, should not be considered as primary forests. Having regard furthermore, to the highly biodiverse nature of certain grasslands, both temperate and tropical, including highly biodiverse savannahs, steppes, scrublands and prairies, bio­fuels made from raw materials originating in such lands should not qualify for the incentives provided for by this Directive. The Commission should establish appropriate criteria and geographical ranges to define such highly biodiverse grasslands in accordance with the best available scientific evidence and relevant international standards.

(12) In calculating the impact of greenhouse gas emissions of land conversion, economic operators should be able to use actual values for the carbon stocks associated with the reference land use and the land use after conversion. They should also be able to use standard values. The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the appropriate basis for such standard values. That work is not currently expressed in a form that is immediately applicable by economic operators. The Commission should therefore produce guidance drawing on...