Neoliberalising technoscience and environment: EU policy for competitive, sustainable biofuels

Since the 1990s the European Union’s biofuels policy has espoused several aims: energy security, greenhouse gas (GHG) savings, technology export and rural development. On these various grounds, by 2007 the EU was moving towards statutory targets, i.e. to mandate larger markets for ‘renewable energy’ including biofuels. However, controversy erupted over harmful environmental and social effects, especially in the global South, where land-use changes were anticipating and supplying a larger EU market for biofuels.