The PetrolPlaza audio version is presented to you by UNITI expo, the leading retail petroleum and car wash trade fair in Europe.

16th International Conference on Renewable Mobility: Fuels of the Future

-
Berlin, Germany



Last update:

The Paris Climate Agreement stipulates that global warming should be limited to 2.0 degrees Celsius, if possible even to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve this goal, global increases in greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 60 percent by 2050 compared with 2010. This ambitious goal represents an enormous challenge for the international community. How can the targets be implemented in concrete terms without restricting transport and traffic for global trade and individual mobility?

In 2016, the German Federal Government adopted the 2050 National Climate Protection Plan, making Germany one of the first countries to draw up a long-term climate protection strategy and submit this to the UN, as required by the Paris Agreement. In 2013, the Federal Cabinet had already adopted a mobility and fuel strategy (MFS), presented by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. This MFS sent out important policy signals, as it describes the drive and fuel options available to the transport sector – road, air, ship, rail – and the expected requirements in terms of energy infrastructure up to 2050 to bring about an energy turnaround in transport.

The future orientation of European climate and energy policy is also crucially important. In June 2018, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers, thus also including the German Federal Government, agreed on a new version of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), which is to apply from 2021 to 2030. The directive envisages an increase in the minimum share of renewable energies in transport from 10 percent to 14 percent in 2030. Alternative fuels, such as biofuels from cultivated biomass, waste and residual materials as well as lignocellulose, will continue to contribute to reducing greenhouse gases in transport in the future, along with electromobility. Germany is already avoiding around 7.3 million tonnes CO2-equivalent annually by using certified sustainable biofuels.

Maintaining the obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all fuels, which was introduced in 2015 in Germany, is crucial, as is further expansion of renewable energies in transport. The greenhouse-gas-reduction quota for fuels should therefore be gradually increased to at least 16 percent from 2019 to 2030 in order to achieve
the agreed European minimum of 14 percent renewable energies in transport.

Increasing diversification of drive technologies, along with production and use of renewable fuels, pose challenges for future mobility, but also offer the key to achieving climate protection goals in the transport sector. There is therefore a greater focus in this year’s conference programme on questions relating to drive technologies and various fuel options.

The International Conference for Renewable Mobility - Fuels of the Future 2019 is one of the most important forums for European actors to discuss current political positions in the fields of climate protection, energy and transport. All international contributions based on  research, technological developments and innovation are welcome in these debates.

Discuss