Setting the rules of the game: Ethical and legal issues raised by bioenergy governance methods

Abstract

Bioenergy is increasingly promoted as an energy carrier in a time of climate change where there is a pressure to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Also a strong interest in increased energy security and even self-sufficiency serves as motivating factors for a shift towards more bioenergy use. The supply and demand of bioenergy is to a high degree steered by the market, but is at the same time subject to different types of regulation. Some of this regulation is aimed at securing sustainability of bioenergy solutions. For example the European Union Renewable Energy Directive contains specific sustainability criteria for biofuels for transport if they are to be counting towards actual mitigation impact - whereas for other forms of bioenergy, there has been a reluctance to put similar criteria in place. Thereby regulatory issues become part of an ethical discussion regarding how best to provide bioenergy in the light of a number of potentially conflicting concerns. This paper examines different approaches in bioenergy governance from an ethical and a legal perspective. For this purpose governance is used in the broad sense of steering social systems by state as well as non-state actors, whereas regulation is characterised by state actor initiatives covering a variety of regulatory instruments. In the paper, use of liquid biofuels and solid biofuels (wood pellets), will be used as cases to illustrate the different approaches. For each case, liquid biofuels and wood pellets, the connected legal and ethical challenges are discussed, identifying questions and dilemmas associated with governance approaches. The paper concludes by pointing out some of the main barriers for different methods of regulating bioenergy production and use.