Land Use Change Greenhouse Gas Emissions of European Biofuel Policies Utilizing the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Model

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB) reviewed the IFPRI extensively and had a number of concerns with the study including the yield of crops on new land, the high proportion of forest converted, the high degree of substitutability between oilseeds, and the poor mass balance for the oilseed sector (oil and meal production was less than the quantity of seed crushed) . Recently, EBB initiated additional work on land use emissions of biofuels using updated economic modeling, which is the subject of this study. This study used an updated economic general equilibrium model developed by Purdue University called the Global Trade Analysis Project, or GTAP. The MIRAGE model used previously utilizes the GTAP database modified by IFPRI.GTAP has been used in the U.S. to estimate land use changes by the State of California for its Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The model is undergoing constant development and peer review.

A version of the model was developed for this particular work to estimate land use changes as a result of European biofuel policy (the model has been used a number of times in the e past for this purpose as well). Modifications to the model for this work included disaggregation of oilseeds into soybeans, palm, rapeseed, and other oilseeds. Coarse grains were also split into sorghum and other coarse grains.We united the GTAP modeling results of land use changes by region with the IFPRI study’s emission rates for each of the land types that are converted, to facilitate direct comparison of the emission results between the two studies.We used the same 8.6% biofuel target in this study.

The results of this study using the latest version of GTAP show that this current study projects less land would be converted for EU biofuels production. The reductions in cropland for the different biodiesel feedstocks ranged from 18% less to 70% less compared with the IFPRI 2011 study. The latest version of GTAP uses higher yields on converted land than the IFPRI analysis. The percent of this new cropland that comes from forest was estimated for the different biodiesel feedstocks in the 10 - 23% range. The IFPRI study estimated that 40%+ of the new cropland came from converted forest. The lower forest conversions for this analysis are the result of adding a new land category of cropland - pasture in the US and Brazil, and an improved method and data in GTAP for determining the proportion of forestland and pasture converted to crops.