ABSTRACT
The need to decarbonise the road transport system has become clearer over the past 20 years, and policy responses have emerged at different levels to try and mitigate the climate impacts of what is an almost exclusively oil-dependent sector. Crop-derived or ‘bio’ fuels gained much attention from the mid-1990s as one of the forerunning solutions to this problem, not least because their use does not require the road transport system to undergo significant or radical transformations. While significant policy measures designed to stimulate the increased use of biofuels as substitutes for petrol and diesel have therefore been introduced on both sides of the Atlantic, concerns about the potential environmental and social impacts of large-scale biofuel production also have a long history.
