The EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas has floated the idea of the EU legislating to oblige member states to provide more charging points for electric vehicles. The proposal came as part of a ‘Clean Power for Transport’ package launched last month that looks to encourage a greater take-up of alternative-fuel vehicles by the public. T&E said it was ‘a small but largely welcome step’ in the right direction.
Opinion by our Director, Jos Dings
A new year has come, full of new challenges and opportunities. Fortunately, for now, Europe seems to have averted the worst emergencies. This should allow for some less ad-hoc and more strategic thinking about recipes to get ourselves out of the woods.
MEPs have supported the Commission’s intention to have 20% of the 2014-20 EU budget spent on actions to fight climate change.
The Commission has issued a transport and technology communication which calls on governments to ‘break away from conventional thinking’ in an attempt to boost new forms of transport energy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The current Commission is on track to have one of the worst-ever environmental records of any EU administration. That is the view of the group of 10 Brussels-based environmental NGOs (‘Green 10’), whose mid-term assessment of José Manuel Barroso’s second Commission says it would not win any medals and is acting to protect the environment even less than his first Commission (2005-09).
The EU should impose a 20% reduction target for carbon dioxide emissions from the entire European transport sector by 2020, according to the European Parliament’s transport committee.