Is the EU promoting the use of clean and alternative fuels?

Policy Question

Indicator codes: CSI 037 , TERM 031

This is an old version, kept for reference only.

Go to latest version

(19 Jul 2019)

Renewable energy is growing as a share of the total amount of energy used by the transport sector, but this share remains small.
Across the EU-28, the average share of renewable energy used in transport (RES-T) was 7.4 % in 2017. EEA data indicate that the share of renewable energy supply in the transport sector (RES-T) further increased to 8.1 % in 2018.
Initially, the EU supported biofuels as a way to help mitigate climate change, but time and research have shown that making fuels out of crops has led to deforestation and increased stress on land resources, as well as potentially inflating food prices. As such, a 7 % cap on the amount of biofuels made from crops has been proposed.
Next generation biofuels made from waste or algae may not cause the problems highlighted above, but major investments will be required to achieve large-scale production.