Pollution from road traffic could have a greater role in harming the health of children than previously thought. A new study based on research in 10 European cities estimates that 14% of chronic childhood asthma is a result of traffic pollution near busy roads.
An international study has warned the EU that it risks getting an important detail wrong in plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. The International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) says basing the EU’s emissions standards on the weight of a vehicle will make it much harder and more expensive to achieve targets and instead a vehicle’s ‘footprint’ should be the guiding factor.
EU targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from cars are too easy and not providing enough of an incentive for car makers. That is the message from T&E’s annual report "How Clean are Europe’s Cars?" published earlier last month.
New research commissioned by T&E has confirmed that measures aimed at improving fuel efficiency also reduce vehicle noise. The report was published just days before the environment committee of the European Parliament voted to tighten existing noise standards for vehicles, narrowly defeating an alternative proposal that would have allowed much louder cars, buses and lorries.
A new report for the Commission suggests about a third of reported carbon dioxide emissions reductions from new cars since 2002 have not happened. T&E says this results in drivers being ‘cheated’ out of the benefits of lower fuel costs, as well as higher emissions of greenhouse gases.
The European Commission has gone back on a series of commitments to reduce the environmental impacts of road vehicles. T&E says the climbdown carries the fingerprints of lobbying by the automotive industry, but will not help Europe’s car makers in the long term.
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.
