Europe burns 19 million bottles of sunflower and rapeseed oil every day in cars

Time to put the brakes on this worse than useless policy. Even some climate obsessives are against it. Will governments now admit their mistake?
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A new analysis by European environmental NGO Transport & Environment finds that Europe burns more than 17,000 tonnes of rapeseed and sunflower oil every day—the equivalent of 19 million 1-liter bottles, reports Green Car Congress.

This has contributed to spiralling food price rises as well as empty supermarket shelves in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the organization says.

T&E has called on governments to prioritize food over fuel and end the use of crop biofuels now.

Ukraine accounts for 40% of the global sunflower oil exports and is also Europe’s largest supplier of rapeseed oil. Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian food exports is putting considerable pressure on supplies and, in turn, prices which are up to two and half times higher than previous years. In Germany, for example, cooking oils are among the six food categories with the highest price increase.

This is exacerbated by the use of vegetable oil in biofuels, T&E says. 18% of the world’s vegetable oil production goes to biodiesel; nearly all of this is fit for human consumption. In recent years, Europe put 58% of all rapeseed and 9% of all sunflower oil consumed in the region into its cars and trucks.

Food price inflation is pushing millions of people around the world into poverty. T&E previously reported that Europe burns 10,000 tonnes of wheat in its cars every day, piling pressure on countries such as Egypt which are heavily reliant on imports.

This has been made worse in recent weeks by governments across the world imposing export restrictions on key food crops, including oils.

Full report here.