The dilemma of indirect land-use changes in EU biofuel policy – An empirical study of policy-making in the context of scientific uncertainty

The potential impact of policies promoting transport biofuels on the use of land due to the indirect effects of feedstock cultivation has generated a controversy in the EU. Policy-makers are urged to regulate the matter without conclusive scientific evidence concerning the scale and severity of indirect land-use change (iLUC). By looking at this situation as an instance of policy making in the context of scientific uncertainty, this study analyses ways to deal with iLUC of biofuels policies learning from policy fields where similar dilemmas were confronted in the past. The experience with technologies such as genetically modified organisms, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power and radioactive waste, and transport biofuels is instructive for this purpose. Policy approaches identified in the case studies are applied to the case of iLUC. The results show that a preventive approach, which appears as the most practical choice in terms of effectiveness and stakeholders’ acceptability, however, also involves a risk of treating scientific uncertainty as certainty (the uncertainty paradox). Policy-makers, scientists and stakeholders all have responsibility to avoid this paradox, in order to limit future controversy.

► We examine ways to deal with indirect land-use changes of EU biofuel policy.
► We identify approaches used by policy makers in the past to deal with uncertain risks.
► We apply these approaches to the case of biofuels.
► A preventive approach appears as the most effective and acceptable option.
► The use science to justify decisions is bluntly a strategy to limit responsibility.