The Environment Committee of the European Parliament will vote next week on noise limits for vehicles. The compromise proposal put forward by the lead MEP has been drafted by sports car manufacturer Porsche.
‘Lead time’ is an expression most people do not often hear, but you hear it all the time when you work on European green laws. Lead time is the idea that, when you set a new environmental standard for an industry, that industry needs to be given time to adapt. This all sounds fair and good, but in reality claiming that lead times are too short, or even too long, is a very popular tool for industry lobbyists to get rid of or delay laws, and that in turn makes lead time a controversial issue.
Today the member states of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) agreed on a Resolution on technology cooperation, which was delaying the implementation of standards to improve the energy efficiency of new ships. This resolution had been in discussion for two years and was hindering any progress on other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ships.
The European Parliament’s environment committee has sent a strong signal that it wants Europe’s vans to be more fuel-efficient than they are now. MEPs voted for a carbon dioxide emissions limit of between 105 and 120 g/km by 2025, down from 181 g/km in 2010. The 2025 target would equate to fuel consumption of 4 to 4.5 l/100km. The specific figure should be defined in 2017. The committee also voted to limit the speed of all new vans to 120 km/h from the start of next year.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) today decided to postpone the entry into force of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions limits for ship engines from 2016 to 2021. Environmental NGOs Transport & Environment (T&E) and Seas at Risk, founding members of the IMO observer organisation Clean Shipping Coalition, condemn IMO’s decision and now call on the EU to adopt its own NOx limits for cleaner air.
A new study by Carbon Matters and CE Delft shows that proper implementation of the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) with different values assigned to different types of unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil shale, can shift investments away from these ultra-high carbon energy sources towards lower carbon ones, leading to global greenhouse gas savings. As such, the study underpins the need for keeping such differentiated values in the legislative proposal by the European Commission, which is currently subject to an impact assessment.
The Environment Committee of the European Parliament today voted to limit the speed of vans to 120kph. MEPs also voted to introduce stricter new targets for van fuel economy and CO2 emissions in 2025 but rejected tightening a weak 2020 target.Capping van speed will encourage supply of smaller engines, reducing average van fuel consumption and emissions by at least 6%.
New rules allow for smarter design to improve safety and cut emissions Cross-border use of ‘megatrucks’ allowed between consenting countries
Transport & Environment (T&E) welcomes the outcome of a key vote today to make passenger cars more fuel-efficient in 2020 and beyond. The Environment Committee of the European Parliament confirmed that new cars sold in 2020 should achieve an average fuel economy of around 3.9 litres/100km.
Proposed changes to EU law, announced today, will make European lorries safer, cleaner and more fuel efficient. Transport & Environment and the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) welcome the European Commission’s proposal on the weights and dimensions of lorries as a vital turning point for road safety and a small but welcome step towards cutting emissions from road transport.