In the draft revised NECP, Slovenia is planning to increase the use of biofuels from 1533 to 2351 GWh in 2021-2030. Biofuels are mostly harmful, do not contribute to climate goals, have a negative impact on biodiversity through land use and threaten food security. At the same time, advanced biofuels have a low potential (2-3%). They may use unsustainable feedstocks due to insufficiently stringent sustainability criteria and lack of traceability, and they are also extremely expensive.

Biofuels need to be reduced, given their negative impacts on climate, biodiversity and food security, not increased as planned in the draft of revised NECP. The negative climate impacts of crop-based biofuels outweigh their supposed benefits. The use of land for biofuel crops inevitably means that it is not used as a natural carbon sink, as habitat for endangered species or for food production. Forests and other vegetation growing on an area equivalent to the area currently used for biofuel crops alone would absorb almost twice as much CO2 from the atmosphere as the official net CO2 savings from replacing fossil fuels with biofuels. 40 times less land is needed to power an electric car with solar energy than a car powered by biofuels.

So far the biofuels have been imported as fuel mix. Slovenia imports ready-made fuel blends. Almost a third of the biofuels used in Slovenia are crop-based, and most are made from waste cooking oil (Part B, Annex IX, RED), which raises questions about sustainability.

Incentives for the development of biofuel production in Slovenia have no place in the revised NECP due to their negative environmental effects. There are better solutions, such as improving and increasing public passenger transport and direct electrification, which is more energy efficient and a well-established solution with fewer negative impacts.