DfT not on course to meet transport renewables target, say MPs

The Department for Transport is not on track to meet its target to source ten per cent of transport fuels from renewables by 2020 in a bid to reduce carbon emissions and prevent dangerous climate change and needs to change course, MPs say.

The DfT expects biofuels to provide 90% of the 2020 target and electrification of road and rail transport the final ten per cent. But the DfT's head of low carbon fuels, Rob Wakely, acknowledged to MPs that with three per cent of transport fuels currently biofuels, this percentage needs to double. The MPs on the Commons energy and climate change select committee say in a new report the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, setting a minimum quota on the proportion of biofuels in the sale of major transport fuel suppliers, needs to be twice as high. And they urge a re-think on changes to Vehicle Excise Duty, which "reduced incentives to buy ultra low emission vehicles".

The MPs highlight that a break on progress is the £27.6bn raised in fuel duty and that road electrification of road vehicles "implies a significant reduction in tax revenue in the long-term" and recommend the "Treasury publishes option to address the fiscal implications of near-universal ULEV uptake".