This public lecture is now available as: MP3 (please listen to the file below in three parts).

Is the EU able to deliver on the biofuels component of its climate change agenda? Drawing on a UK ESRC-funded research project on the three main biofuels markets (the EU, USA and Brazil), Adrian Kay will focus on the dynamics of biofuels markets and EU policies. Starting with an overview of the Commission’s reports on Member States’ progress towards the 2020 targets, the seminar will deal with the EU’s sustainability criteria and WTO-compliance and the controversial policy issue of indirect land-use change.
 

The seminar will also ponder possible lessons for Australia both as an exporter of biofuel feedstocks and in terms of its own policy ambitions to increase the use of biofuels in the transport sector. Australia has clear interests in the nature of the emerging international governance arrangements arising out of the biofuels sustainability agenda, and in the tentative lessons these indicate for a transition to a low carbon economy and governing sustainability more generally.

 

Adrian Kay is an Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Economics & Government at the ANU. He has previously held academic appointments in the UK and at Griffith University, Queensland. Prior to an academic career, Adrian was a member of the UK government’s European Fast Stream for several years and spent a year working for the European Commission in Brussels. His major research interests are in the broad areas of comparative and international public policy, with a particular empirical focus on health, agriculture and bioenergy.