ETA: Environment sold down the river as Europe sets to weaken key climate target for new cars
Wednesday, 07 Feb 2007 14:57
The European Commission has proposed to weaken an eleven-year-old climate target for new cars just five days after the global scientific community warned policymakers to take serious and urgent action on climate change. The Commission plans to introduce a legally binding target for average CO2 emissions from new cars of 130 grams per kilometre, ten grams more than the standing target of 120 g/km set in 1996.
The impact of the weakened target will be 100 million tons of additional CO2 emissions over the period 2012-2020, equivalent to all the annual car CO2 emissions in Britain today.
The car industry inevitably failed to meet its own target agreed in 1998 to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. That is why the government has belatedly decided to step in with binding legislation to improve fuel efficiency.
”Government has regulated car safety and exhaust pollution for years “ says Andrew Davis, director of the ETA "Ten years late it recognises that regulation is needed on CO2 emissions too”
We said that the European car industry would fail to meet its CO2 targets” continues Andrew Davis “simply because of the way the target was designed. The last thing we should do is to reward this failure with a weaker and delay fuel-efficiency target; especially after the announcement last week by the IPCC in Paris requiring serious action on climate change."
Editor’s Notes:
The existing target for new cars set by the European Union in 1996 was for the average new car to emit 120 grams of CO2 per kilometre by 2005, equivalent to 4.5 (diesel) or 5.0 (petrol) litres of fuel per 100km. The target date has already been delayed until 2010 and now until 2012. The Commission proposal to allow measures undertaken by other stakeholders to count towards the car industry target is the third weakening of the strategy.
Some eighteen million cars are sold in Europe every year. The average car has a lifespan of well over a decade meaning gas guzzlers sold this year will still be emitting high levels of CO2 for many years to come.
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