Biofuels made from food crops have been pitched as a way to reduce carbon emissions from transport, however questions have been raised about how green these biofuels really are.

Recent evidence suggests that methods currently used to establish emissions from 'conventional' biofuels (those grown, for the most part, from edible agricultural crops) do not take into account the impacts of indirect land use change (ILUC), meaning their use could be worse for the environment than traditional fossil fuels; vegetable-based oils such as rapeseed and palm in particular have huge environmental impacts.

The European Union, which previously declared wholesale support for these biofuels and fostered a booming industry through its biofuel mandates, has taken note and now looks set to exact an embarrassing U-turn, placing limits on the amount of biofuels that can be produced from agricultural crops. Legislators in the United States, too, have taken action.

The EU has supported controversial biofuels for the last 10 years, but in 2012 the Commission proposed to limit the amount of food-based biofuels, and, although it has sought to slightly increase the cap proposed by the Commission, the Parliament has followed suit.

By capping the production of conventional biofuels, EU legislators are attempting to drive an increase in support for advanced biofuels, produced from algae, waste and other sources which do not have the same impacts on food prices, availability or the environment.

On Thursday (11th July), the European parliament Environment Committee backed the Commission's proposals, supporting a cap on biofuel production. The Committee voted to limit the amount of conventional biofuel in the total amount of EU transport fuel to 5.5 percent. Opponents of the Commission's plans warned that this could potentially scupper chances of meeting the Renewable Transport Directive, which aims to ensure 10 percent of fuel comes from a renewable source by 2020.

Nevertheless, the committee also supported extra incentives to spur the uptake of advanced biofuels and backed moves to factor the effects of indirect land use change (ILUC) into official emissions calculations. The proposals will go before the European Parliament as a whole in September.

Corinne Lepage, who acted as European Parliament rapporteur on biofuels, said there is clear evidence that the promotion of first-generation biofuels affected developing countries by pushing up food prices. She said these also drove the large-scale conversion of land to agriculture, either for biofuel production or to account for food production displaced by biofuel crops, which led to the destruction of forests and wetlands.

However, she urged for a more nuanced view of the situation; Lepage believes measures should be taken to stimulate the production of biofuels such as ethanol "that do provide substantial benefits for the climate," rather than an "indiscriminate" withdrawal of support. She added, "Ignoring this problem risks undermining the EU's credibility in the fight against climate change and legitimacy of financial support [of about €10 billion per year from EU member states' budgets] to the industry."

Biofuel industry groups have railed against the EU proposals and denied the accusations of harm levelled at the sector. They claim the science around ILUC is still too new and imprecise to inform policy.

Neither industry groups nor green groups were wholly satisfied with this week's vote; although environmentalists cautiously welcomed the news, they maintain that more needs to be done to address 'food versus fuel' concerns.

Greenpeace welcomed the Parliament's decision, which it called "encouraging… In the face of heavy lobbying from the biofuels industry." The organisation's EU biofuels policy director Sebastien Risso said, "MEPs have made great strides to safeguard against the environmental impacts of biofuels, but they have missed an opportunity to reduce the consumption of biofuels that compete with food. When MEPs come together for a final vote in the autumn, they should take a look at the evidence and turn away from harmful biofuels."