Philippines

When: 2025–2026

Purpose: Assess how higher bioethanol blending targets affect climate mitigation, agricultural land, forest cover, domestic fuel supply, and water-energy-food trade-offs.

What happened: The Philippines examined bioethanol from sugarcane. Scenarios compared current E10 blending with higher E20 and E30 pathways in the Philippine Energy Plan.

Key insights:

• Imported bioethanol supplied 31% of total bioethanol supply in 2019, so domestic blending targets are both an energy-security issue and a land-use issue.
• Meeting current bioethanol demand domestically would require about 3,400 km2 of agricultural land.
• Moving from E10 to E20 by 2025 requires an additional 1,800 km2 of sugarcane land; reaching E30 by 2035 requires about 6,200 km2.
• Higher blending can deliver large mitigation benefits: net emission reductions are estimated at 26.5 MtCO2e under E20 and 42.3 MtCO2e under E30.
• Bioethanol targets lead to a trade-off with forests: under E20 forest cover is reduced by 1.2% by 2025, and by 2.8% under E30 by 2035 if domestic production expands without stronger land safeguards and yield improvements.

Resources: Philippines policy brief on bioethanol impacts on climate, land, energy, and water resources.

Models: OSeMOSYS

Stakeholders: National energy & agriculture counterparts, UN DESA, Climate Compatible Growth, UNDP, and academia.