IEA Bioenergy Webinar: Understanding Indirect Land-Use Change ILUC and Why Reality is a Special Case

Webinar organised by IEA Bioenergy Task 43 on Biomass Supply in Sustainable and Circular Economies.
Indirect land-use change (ILUC) continues to be a controversial and challenging issue when trying to verify the effects of biobased production systems on climate and the environment.
This presentation will share findings from a recent report that evaluates approaches used to estimate the international impacts of increases in production and use of biofuels on commodity markets and land use.
The research identified two distinct narratives which generate divergent results based on how questions are framed and corresponding modelling assumptions: the “Trade and Market Response” narrative asserts that biofuel markets create a shock in demand and in response to this shock, capital and land markets adjust (other variables are typically assumed to be held constant); under the “Internal Adjustment Response” narrative the production system responds to the biofuel demand as it does to other simultaneously changing demands.
The differences between modeling parameters and site-specific conditions are examined as one means key to better understand and address ILUC concerns related to land use for renewable energy systems. As more data accumulates since the introduction of U.S. biofuels policies, evidence increasingly questions key relationships assumed in the Trade and Market Response models.