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.
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During the last week of April, the ENVI Committee will vote on regulation that will determine how efficient European cars will be from 2020.
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 shipping sector has been described as ‘one of the most unregulated sources of air pollution’. In a report on shipping, the European Environment Agency (EEA) says emissions from the sector have ‘increased substantially’ over the last two decades. Nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter (PM2.5) levels have risen by as much as 35-55% between 1990 and 2010, and nitrogen oxide emissions could increase so much in the coming years that they could be equal to land-based sources by 2020.
The official fuel consumption measured in tests is now, on average, almost a quarter lower than that achieved on average by drivers on the road, a new report says. The report finds that this gap is growing and the principal cause is car manufacturers manipulating official tests.
This report provides new evidence and understanding on why there is a growing gap between the official fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of new passenger cars and vans, and that which is achieved by the same vehicles on the road. It demonstrates that the current (NEDC) test is outdated and unrepresentative of real-world driving and current vehicles, and that lax testing procedures are allowing car-makers to manipulate the official tests to produce unrealistically low results. The report also shows that the current supervision of testing and checks on production vehicles (to ensure these are equivalent to tested vehicles) are inconsistent and inadequate, with manufacturers paying the organisations undertaking and certifying the tests. The conclusion is that the current system for measuring car and van fuel economy and CO2 emissions is not fit for purpose and is in need to urgent updating.
The initiative by the EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas to increase the number of recharging and refuelling points for vehicles that run on alternative fuels has run into problems, with several transport ministers refusing to commit to spending the necessary money.
Los vehículos generan una octava parte de las emisiones de dióxido de carbono (CO2) de Europa. La cantidad de CO2 generada está directamente relacionada con la cantidad de consumo de combustible de los vehículos. Por lo tanto, los vehículos con una emisión de carbono inferior son más eficientes y económicos por lo que respecta al consumo de combustible.
En el año 2009, la Unión Europea estableció una serie de objetivos de obligado cumplimiento para reducir las emisiones de los vehículos nuevos a 130 gramos de CO2 por kilómetro (g/km) para 2015 y a 95 g/km en 2020.
En este documento se expone por qué y cómo se debe fomentar el mercado de vehículos hipocarbónicos sin reducir los considerables beneficios que se derivan del aumento de la eficiencia de los vehículos convencionales.
In 2010 the EU reached an agreement on CO2 emission standards for light commercial vehicles (vans). The final outcome was a significant weakening of the initial Commission proposal of 135g CO2/km. Misinformation about technological potential and inflated cost estimates convinced policy makers that the proposed target levels had to be weakened. A study which was instrumental in influencing policy makers was the 2010 Aachen (IKA) study. It had been commissioned by the German ministry of economy to inform its position and concluded that CO2 emission reductions from vans are extremely difficult and very expensive. Despite the availability of new and more up-to-date studies, today the same study continues to be used to assert that 147g is an “over-ambitious” target.This briefing analyses how the IKA study came to its results and assesses the credibility of these results.