Press Release

Nine former Environment Ministers call for a stricter climate policy for cars

September 13, 2006

Today, nine former EU Environment Ministers appealed to Commission President José Manuel Barroso to respect a target they set ten years ago for carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. The ministers urged Barroso 'to do what is necessary to ensure that carmakers and importers of Europe reach the 120g CO2/km target by 2010'.

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A letter with this message was revealed by Ms Corinne Lepage, former French Environment Minister and current French Presidential candidate, at the T&E conference ‘Driving low emissions – future EU policies towards more fuel efficient cars’. The event is sponsored by the UK, the Netherlands, Renault and Toyota.

The letter was published in the Financial Times

The nine former environment ministers are those of Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Finland and the United Kingdom.

If the advice of the ministers had been followed, by 2010 new cars would on average emit a quarter less CO2 per km and hence use a quarter less fuel than they did in 2005 when the average CO2 figure was 160g CO2/km.

The letter can be found here.

A T&E briefing on this issue of CO2 from cars can be found here.

More information on the ‘Driving low emissions’ event can be found here.

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