In his speech in Brussels on Thursday evening Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas also said: 'We have very important targets to achieve for renewable energies but we need to be very careful about how and where they are developed. We need to make sure that when promoting biofuels we are not encouraging the destruction of habitats.'
How refreshing to find a politician understanding the issues so clearly and describing them so well.
Biofuels produce low carbon savings, exacerbate world hunger through removing land from food production and accelerate biodiversity loss through habitat destruction.
To be fair, many of us, including the RSPB, were a bit slow to realise the full impacts of biofuels so politicians, perhaps, cannot be blamed for being slow on the uptake too.
But where they can be blamed, and will be blamed, is when having realised the error of their previous views they remain inactive in changing damaging and discredited policies in future.
Anyone can be wrong – but those who remain inactive once they have realised their previous error are indeed culpable. When will UK politicians act decisively on this global issue?