T&E's Aat Peterse writes in today's Financial Times: Another reason there are so few diesel cars in the US is strict air pollution standards ("Carmakers display a cleaner side of diesel", January 31). But as your article pointed out, the technology now exists to make cleaner diesel engines and several European carmakers have been showing it off at the Detroit motor show. It is strange then that the latest emissions standards for new cars proposed by the European Commission (Euro 5) do not take these technical advances into account.
[mailchimp_signup][/mailchimp_signup]If unchanged, the proposed Euro 5 standard would result in European carmakers exporting cleaner diesels to the US than they sell at home. To Europeans more used to bashing the US’s environmental credentials, that would be rather embarrassing!
Europe must stand firm over its future targets for carmakers as it cannot afford to fall further behind China.
The decision to create a Europe-wide carbon price was right but creates significant political risk. The good news is it can still be fixed.
It's about time the EU requires parts of key products to be made locally – and nowhere is this more urgent than in the battery sector.