The European Parliament's Transport committee reached an agreement on revised road charging rules for lorries (the Eurovignette directive) that
would open the door for Member States to charge for air and noise pollution in road tolls.
Statement on behalf of Seas At Risk (SAR), Transport & Environment (T&E) and Environmental Defence Fund (EDF)
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) failed to reach agreement on global action to address greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping at a meeting in London last week (1). Environmental groups have repeated calls for EU action in the absence of progress on global measures.
Transport & Environment, a federation of sustainable transport campaign groups across Europe, strongly defends the contents of its
latest report on car manufacturers' average CO2 emissions in the face of a legal attack against its Austrian member by Porsche Austria, a subsidiary of
Volkswagen Group (1).
In the EU and Norway, traffic noise is the second biggest environmental problem affecting health after air pollution, says a report published today by the World Health Organization (WHO) (1). This new health evidence highlights the urgency of adopting more stringent EU vehicle noise standards, according to health, environment and sustainable transport campaigners. The European Commission is expected to release a proposal to update the Vehicle Noise Directive 70/157/EEC in June. (2)
Brussels - The European Commission has today published its 2050 strategy for transport, including a headline target to cut transport emissions by 60% by
2050.
Jos Dings, director of Transport & Environment, a network of sustainable transport campaign groups across Europe made the following comments:
Makers of heavy-duty construction equipment, diesel locomotives and other non-road mobile machinery should be granted an extra three years to
comply with pollution standards agreed in 2004, according to the European Parliament’s environment committee. Sustainable transport campaign group Transport
& Environment says the move undermines the credibility of European air quality laws.
The EU will today (16 March) come under renewed pressure to effectively ban the world’s most climate polluting transport fuel from Europe.
The European Commission has today decided on the historical aviation emissions which will be used to calculate the number of aviation allowances
to be available from 2012 when the sector is brought into the EU-ETS (1).
The European Parliament has approved weakened CO2 / fuel efficiency standards for vans (light commercial vehicles). The final law says the average new van sold in the EU should emit no more than 175g CO2/km in 2017 and 147g CO2/km in 2020. The original European Commission proposal of 135g CO2/km in 2020 was weakened under enormous pressure from vehicle manufacturers.
Canadian pressure for u-turn on EU clean fuel law
A scientific report (1) for the European Commission, published online yesterday and then immediately withdrawn, has confirmed that carbon emissions from Canadian tar sand oil production are 'significantly higher than...industry-average emissions from conventional fuels'.