URGENT re FQD: upcoming plenary vote on the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) 


The Fuel Quality Directive contains important climate change legislation which has been watered down by the EU Commission as a result of increased lobbying pressure from oil interests during the TTIP and CETA negotiations. I am writing to strongly recommend you vote to restore the effectiveness of the FQD and thus against the Commission’s recent ineffective version, in the upcoming plenary vote for MEPs – which I understand is this coming Wednesday 17th December (please check).


Why the FQD is important          (also see appended postscript for other factors)

1.  Europe’s transport sector emits 31% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions [1] and will become the biggest source of climate-changing emissions within the EU soon after 2020 [2].  The FQD's Article 7a obliges transport fuel suppliers to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of transport fuel by 6% by 2020 (relative to 2010), as part of the EU's wider goals to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. To be effective in achieving this modest reduction of GHG’s it is essential that the FQD distinguishes between different sources of transport fuels as data shows that they vary greatly in lifecycle emissions. However the EU Commission yielded to oil lobbying pressure to remove this essential distinction between sources and to discontinue the measure beyond 2020 – when it should if anything be increased in effectiveness.

2.  Tar sands: Scientific data shows clearly, as would be expected, that the life-cycle GHG emissions of fuels from tar sands is significantly higher than from conventional sources. For example, the EU-commissioned and peer-reviewed report by Adam Brandt of Stanford University showed life-cycle emissions averaged 22% or 23% higher for tar sands fuels [3]. The EU Commission agreed to incorporating this distinction in the FQD in 2011 and should have stood firm against lobbying from oil interests (including Canada and the US during the TTIP and CETA negotiations).

3.  Climate: It is now widely accepted from work by Carbon Tracker, the International Energy Agency and others that we can only burn a quarter to a third of global fossil fuel reserves to have any good chance of keeping temperature rise to below the +2 degrees threshold agreed internationally, yet we are now on a +4 to +6 degrees trajectory which would be disastrous (we are now at +0.8 degrees, and even +2 degrees is now considered unacceptable). Bank of England chief Mark Carney accepts this and its consequences on the value of fossil fuel investments when global climate agreements will make such assets worthless [4]. It is clear that at the very least, such dirty high-lifecycle-emissions sources as coal and tar sands must remain in the ground.

I therefore urge you to push and vote for an effective FQD that distinguishes high emissions transport fuels including from tar sands sources from conventional sources. Such an important piece of climate legislation should not be allowed to be rendered useless as a mere bargaining chip for reaching agreements on “free trade” with the US and Canada.

Please inform me your voting decision for this and your reasons.

Yours sincerely,







P.S. An effective FQD would also bring other benefits worth bearing in mind, for example:

  Exploiting tar sands has other negative consequences that need to be stopped, including ecocide (a crime under proposed international law), due to the extensive loss and damage to habitat, wildlife and environment, including extensive pollution; also disregards to social justice, such as the flouting of legal treaty rights of the indigenous peoples, also of their basic human rights for freedom from ill-health and death from pollution-induced cancers via water and air from the tar sands (example: from the leaking and evaporating "tailing ponds").

  Avoidance of financial losses not just due to the stranded assets referred to in 3 above but also on purely economic grounds: oil from tar sands costs at least $80 per barrel to produce; global oil prices have now plunged to below $65 per barrel, making the tar sands industry uneconomic.




Endnotes / references

[1]  Refers to: 'EU energy in figures - statistical pocketbook 2014'   http://ec.europa.eu/energy/publications/doc/2014_pocketbook.pdf

[2]  From Transport and Environment’s: http://www.transportenvironment.org/press/meps%E2%80%99-rejection-weak-fuel-quality-rules-sends-strong-signal-post-2020-cleaner-fuels-plan

[3]  Emissions from extraction-production of oil from tar sands are 3 to 5 times higher than for oil from conventional sources [e.g. 4.9x if calculated from Brandt’s report] and if expressed "wells-to-wheels" for the combusted fuel end-product i.e. "life-cycle emissions" the emissions are 22 or 23% higher [107g vs 87.5g, or 107.3 vs 87.1g CO2/MJ] – figures taken or calculated from peer-reviewed EU-commissioned report by Brandt.: https://circabc.europa.eu/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/06a92b8d-08ca-43a6-bd22-9fb61317826f/Brandt_Oil_Sands_Post_Peer_Review_Final.pdf

[4] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/189f21d8-7737-11e4-a082-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3LYl59KxS