Two EU laws, the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) adopted in 2009, promote the use of biofuels in the EU, ostensibly for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector.
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.
In his latest blog post, T&E policy officer for lorries William Todts disputes the industry's claims of 'spectacular' fuel-efficiency progress and discusses the need for truck manufacturers to focus on making trucks themselves more fuel efficient, smarter and safer.
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.
Environmental groups have reacted angrily to news that the Commission has approved a scheme that would allow fuels made from palm oil to count towards the EU’s renewable fuels target. The decision threatens to reignite the controversy that indirect land-use change (ILUC) is not being taken into account in the EU’s biofuels policy.
MEPs are voting for more sustainability with one hand and unsustainable projects with the other. That is the message from a group of NGOs after MEPs voted to strengthen sustainability safeguards for infrastructure projects that could receive EU funding, but at the same time voted to support certain transport projects that will take Europe further away from its sustainability goals.
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 World Carfree Network has written to the Commission to express concern about the future of cross-border rail services after a mass of cutbacks in international trains. It says the new timetable that came into effect on 9 December saw an end to all direct trains between Barcelona and Milan, Barcelona and Zurich, Bucharest and Belgrade, and Brussels and The Hague. There are also severe cutbacks in other transnational services, notably in the six countries of the former Yugoslavia.
A Japanese academic has developed an innovative way of making electric cars more attractive – having them charge their battery as they drive along the road. Based on the assumption that what is holding back electric cars is the need to carry an expensive and heavy battery that takes a long time to charge and then offers either a short distance or a low speed, Takashi Ohira at the Toyohashi University of Technology has built a 0.3%-scale electric car that picks up electricity from electrodes buried beneath the road surface as it drives along.