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.
The EU has set a legally-binding target for new cars to emit no more than 95 grammes of CO2 per kilometre (g/km) by 2020. The target for vans is 147g/km. In July 2012, the European Commission announced its proposals on how these targets should be met. These proposals are currently being considered by the European Parliament and Council. The Commission did not propose further standards for 2025.This briefing outlines the arguments for setting strong 2025 targets and explains why industry arguments for delaying these targets are unfounded and would set back progress. It is based on new research by consultancy Ricardo-AEA (also downloadable in this page) as well as other evidence.
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.
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.
European car manufacturers are better positioned than most of their Asian counterparts [1] to meet the target of 95 g/km average CO2 emissions by 2020, T&E’s 2012 Cars Report says. In the race to hit the 2020 95g target, all European makers (except Daimler) rank in the top 9 whilst five of the bottom six carmakers are Asian.
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.
EC plan for a 2020 competitive car and lorry industry omits key environmental promises.The Commission’s Cars 2020 Action Plan (1) for a competitive and sustainable automotive industry in Europe announced today fails to address key strategic challenges such as climate change. Sustainable transport campaigners, Transport & Environment (T&E), have identified important omissions from the plans. This follows earlier announcements this week that other key policies to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles are being shelved.
Brussels - Fuel tax havens such as Luxembourg and Spain may have to raise their low diesel taxes following a vote in the European Parliament in Strasbourg this afternoon on a proposal to revise the EU’s Energy Tax law. Commenting on the outcome of the vote, Magnus Nilsson, senior campaigner at T&E said: “This vote is good news for countries like Portugal, Belgium, France and Germany who currently lose billions in tax revenue as a result of lorries filling up in fuel tax havens such as Luxembourg and Spain. Lower diesel taxes are bad for the climate and force governments to find cash elsewhere, such as by raising job-killing labour taxes. ”
