EU member states must implement the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) by June 2021. The implementation offers an important opportunity to shift national policies away from an exclusive reliance on crop-based biofuels (especially palm oil) to a broader range of cleaner, advanced fuels.
The European Commission, a Spanish court and people power appear to have won a bizarre battle to keep Europe’s most successful low-emissions zone operating. According to provisional readings, the ‘Madrid Central’ zone in the Spanish capital has achieved more NO2 reductions than any city in Europe since being introduced last year, but the scheme faces being scrapped by a coalition of right-wing parties that formed a majority after May’s Madrid city elections.
A round trip flight to the south of France costs the same as a round trip ticket to the Dutch island of Terschelling. How is that possible? Part of the answer can be found in the enormous subsidies that go to the aviation industry. Ties Joosten from the Dutch platform for investigative journalism Follow the Money mapped as many of these subsidies as possible. Aviation, the most carbon intensive mode of transport, is heavily subsidised and its emissions will continue to soar until these are addressed.
While carmakers have recalled on average between 70% and 99% of highly-polluting diesel vehicles in Germany, progress has been much, much slower elsewhere in Europe, official data shows. More than three years after the Dieselgate emissions scandal broke, only 45% of cars with the notorious VW diesel engine have been recalled in Poland, Eastern Europe’s biggest market. And these are only the cheapest, least effective form of fixes – software updates.
Only 10 million of the 43 million highly-polluting diesel cars and vans that were caught [1] in the Dieselgate emissions scandal have been recalled since 2015. And although these measures only require the cheapest, least effective form of fixes – software recalls – they will not be completed for another two years, analysis of new EU data indicates. Transport & Environment (T&E), which analysed the data, said the European Commission and EU governments need to accelerate software updates across the whole Single Market but also combine these with more effective hardware retrofits where technically feasible.
An analysis of new official EU data shows that progress on recalls of manipulated diesel cars is stalling in the European Union while the continent still faces an air quality crisis which has landed 14 EU Member States in court.
The European Commission has published proposals to revise its reporting rules on ships’ emissions data which are aimed at enabling those who charter ships to pick the cleanest and most efficient vessels. T&E has welcomed the proposals, but says the Commission is wrong to concede on the need to report cargo data.
A new law to cut carbon emissions from new cars and vans by 15% in 2025 and 37.5% (vans 31%) in 2030, compared to 2021 levels, was today approved by the European Parliament’s environment committee. The European federation of transport NGOs, Transport & Environment (T&E), said that while the targets are an improvement on the European Commission’s weak original proposal, they fall well below what’s needed to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement – which would require the last car with an engine to be sold by the early 2030s.
International coalition of NGOs, #NotInMyTank, invites all like-minded primates to join the huddle. Orangutans have announced gatherings in front of EU representation offices in Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, and Rome on Monday 21 January. They’re marching against the deforestation caused by the use of palm oil in biofuels (so-called ‘green’ or ‘bio’ diesel).
After five rounds and 27 long hours of negotiations, the EU agreed a new car CO2 deal that will cut new car emissions by 15% in 2025 and 37.5% in 2030. This is good news, especially considering where we started.
