THE GOVERNMENT has abandoned a plan to have biofuels make up 5.75 per cent of all transport fuel by 2010, Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan disclosed yesterday.
The decision to drop the ambitious biofuels targets - which were set as recently as 15 months ago by Mr Ryan's predecessor Noel Dempsey - follows growing doubts about the benefits of biofuels.
They have been blamed for steep rises in global food prices as well as for exacerbating climate change rather than combating it.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Ryan said he has urged a moderation of the policy at European ministerial level.
The 5.75 per cent target adheres to an EU timetable that would raise the quota of biofuels in transport to 10 per cent in 2020. But several European countries, particularly Britain, have criticised the policy. An influential UK report on biofuels policy by Prof Ed Gallagher urges a more cautious introduction, which Mr Ryan says he supports.
"There is no sense in holding to that 5.75 per cent 2010 target. It's a bad policy to ramp up biofuels production to meet that target without putting sustainability criteria in place. It also makes sense to have a gradual curved path recommended by Gallagher and an interim review in 2015," he said.
"We have to make sure that the development of biofuels does not lead to hunger in other countries."
Mr Ryan said he was not sure if it would have been feasible for Ireland to achieve the target.
The Republic's biofuels sector produces only 0.6 per cent of all fuel, although a greater quantity is imported. Most of Ireland's biofuels would have to be imported and Mr Ryan said this posed difficulties.
Under World Trade Organisation rules, the Government would not be allowed to distinguish between biofuel imports. There would be no way of telling if the imports were harming the environment or if they had contributed to rising food prices.
Trying to get to the 2010 target in a "hell for leather" way was always over-ambitious, Mr Ryan said.