EU set to meet green energy goal but UK, Netherlands trail

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is collectively on track to achieve its goal of sourcing a fifth of its energy from renewables by 2020, although Britain, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are lagging behind other states, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

However it acknowledged that the transport sector - which accounts for around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions - remained a problem area and was struggling to curb the use of fossil fuels.

EU officials are pushing renewables as they seek to reduce both carbon dioxide emissions and a dependency on expensive oil and gas imports, especially from Russia.

Renewable energy is expected to have accounted for 15.3 percent of energy consumption in the EU last year, the Commission said on Tuesday, setting the bloc on course to reach its target in five years' time.

Its latest biennial progress report said 25 out of 28 nations should meet their 2013/2014 interim national goals.

But, apart from the three laggards, it said France, Malta, Belgium and Spain may also need to ratchet up efforts, even though they have hit their interim targets.

Higher use of renewables such as wind, biomass, hydro and solar led almost half member states to reduce their gas consumption by at least 7 percent in 2013 and avoided around 388 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, the report said.

Following on from the 20 percent goal for green energy for 2020, the EU has an outline target to increase the share of renewables to at least 27 percent by 2030.

But some environmental campaigners and green politicians said the Commission was in danger of complacency and that the 2030 goal was not ambitious enough.

"A whole new impetus is necessary to boost renewables in Europe and worldwide," said Claude Turmes, Luxembourg Green Member of the European Parliament.

For green energy in transport, the 2020 target is 10 percent, while the expected level for 2014 was 5.7 percent. No target has been set for 2030.

The Commission said meeting the 10 percent target "is challenging but remains feasible".

A major problem has been policy uncertainty due to concerns many kinds of biofuel could be damaging to the environment. Apart from driving up food prices, using farmland to produce biofuels adds to pressure to free up land through deforestation, which can result in increased greenhouse gas emissions.

To address the problem, in April EU politicians backed a deal to limit the amount of crop-based biofuel that can be used in the transport sector.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Pravin Char)