Page 27 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

CHAPTER 2

Biofuel transitions: An overview

of regulations and standards for

a more sustainable framework

,†
Piergiuseppe Morone*, Andrzej Strzałkowski* , Almona Tani* ,‡
*
Bioeconomy in Transition Research Group (BiT-RG), Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
†
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
‡
Food and Agriculture Organization—FAO, Rome, Italy
Contents

1 Introduction 21
2 Defining and mapping biofuels and their markets 22
3 Economic, social, and environmental issues associated with biofuels
(production and consumption) 25
3.1 Sustainability issues: From food security to nonfood resource biorefineries 27
3.2 Rural development 28
4 The role of policy: Regulation and standards 29
4.1 The Europe framework 29
4.2 The US framework 33
4.3 The China, India, and Brazil frameworks 36
5 Lessons learned and future perspectives for the bio-based economy 38
6 Conclusions 42
References 43
Further reading 46

1 Introduction
Climate change, environmental degradation, air pollution, and the expected
world population growth make the transition out of a fossil-based economy
into one based on biomasses of outmost importance and urgency.
In the latest report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it is
stated that to achieve the global warming target of 1.5°C, the CO 2 emissions
must be reduced by about 45% of the 2010 levels by 2030 and reaching zero
by 2050 (IPCC SPM, 2018, p. 15). The situation is also extremely challeng-
ing when it goes to resources scarcity. Although material productivity

Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future © 2020 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815581-3.00002-6 All rights reserved. 21