This analysis shows that the final rules agreed on how zero and low-emission cars are counted towards the Cars C02 regulation – i.e. the multiplier for plug-in hybrids, double-counting in some markets as well as the potential inclusion of Norway – leave much room for gaming and loopholes.
As the transition to electric vehicles is gaining speed in Europe and globally, demand for cobalt has jumped over past years and will significantly increase in the future. This trend is expected to mostly impact the mining landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as the country accounts for around ⅔ of global cobalt production.
Effectively addressing climate change is possibly the greatest challenge of our time. In 2015 world governments agreed in Paris that global temperature rise must be limited to well below 2ºC, while aiming for 1.5ºC compared to pre-industrial levels. A recent IPCC 1.5º Special Report also recommended "deep emissions reductions" to achieve these temperature goals.
The European Commission funded a study on aviation taxation, which was completed in mid-2018 but never published. It finds that Europe is chronically undertaxing the sector in comparison to other major markets. It further finds that increasing aviation taxation could cut emissions while having no net impact on jobs or GDP. T&E's briefing paper analyses these findings.
Aviation noise, capacity and environmental issues are subject to great public debate in the Netherlands, driven in particular by the fact that the number of flight movements at its principal airport, Schiphol, is limited by law to 500,000 per year and that cap has effectively been reached. A second airport has been prepared for operations at Lelystad, some 50km away, but its opening has been continuously delayed by public concerns over aircraft noise, low flight paths and regulatory issues about how mainly low-cost flights could be transferred from Schiphol to Lelystad. The Dutch Government recently issued a decree on new traffic distribution rules for Lelystad which was also the subject of a consultation by the European Commission.