Brussels, 05/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - European carmakers must stop crying wolf! Such is the plea from European environmental NGOs, exasperated that the motor industry, today, when faced with the prospect of a compulsory reduction in CO2 emissions for new van registrations, is behaving exactly as it did three years ago when it was told to cut emissions from private cars. As the October 2009 proposal for a regulation aimed at reducing average CO2 emissions from the fleet of new light commercial vans is about to be examined, a new fact sets NGOs more at ease. The recently published findings of a report show that the new limits adopted last year for reducing CO2 emissions from new cars may be reached by a number of makers ahead of time. This only makes the motor industry more furious - more furious that NGOs place the reduction of emissions from private cars in the same bag as emissions reductions from vans, whose specific features and use must be taken into account.
A record in 2009. The report published on 4 November by T&E (Transport & Environment), an NGO committed to the promotion of sustainable transport, shows that some car makers will manage to attain the 130 g of CO2 per km target before 2015, i.e. six years ahead of schedule, as Toyota has practically already reached this aim. According to the report, average CO2 emissions from cars registered a record fall of 5.1% in 2009. This trend is not just due to the economic crisis or subsidies, but rather to the 50% improvement in average efficiency obtained through technological progress rather than sales of smaller vehicles.
T&E like Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE) use this data to show that, in 2008, car makers had carried out intense lobbying to obtain a three-year postponement of the objective initially proposed by the Commission (130g/km by 2012). “Three years ago, the car industry said it could not deliver car CO2 targets on time but is now set to achieve them years ahead of schedule. Now the same industry is saying van CO2 limits cannot be met. It is time the credibility of these claims was questioned”, comments Jos Dings, T&E Director.
Richard Dyer, from FoE in the United Kingdom, says the data shows that car makers make cars that are more efficient in fuel and that the CO2 regulation is bearing fruit. He therefore considers it would be wrong to allow makers to “rest on their laurels”.
Stop comparing apples with oranges. ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association) responded immediately. In a press release on Friday 5 November, the association accuses T&E of “comparing apples with oranges”. Vans are quite different vehicles from cars as they transport goods. The legislation applying to vans must therefore be targeted to a very different market segment to that for private cars. Also, according to ACEA, the timetable imposed by law must take into account the complex planning of the van production cycle. With regard to the fall in average emissions from cars, ACEA states this is due to various factors, including the economic crisis, but “most importantly, we have seen a shift in consumer awareness and a subsequent greater demand for fuel efficiency”. It states there is a clear connection with the changing car taxation policies encouraging green cars.
Greens and NGOs - the same fight. When taking a position at first reading on the proposal for a regulation establishing norms for results on CO2 emissions for new vans, the Parliament's environment committee voted, on 28 September this year, to weaken the aim of long-term reduction by choosing 140g/km by 2020 (instead of 135g/km proposed by the European Commission) and voted for penalties of €95 per gram instead of €120 as proposed by the European Commission. This was to the great disappointment of the Greens/EFA at the EP, which share the point of view of the NGOs.
Indignant that the vote had “weakened an already weak proposal from the EU Commission”, the Greens accused the Christian Democrats and Liberals of “capitulating to the demands of auto-industry laggards … against the interests of consumers and small businesses as well as the environment”.
The European strategy for the reduction of CO2 emissions from transport has not yet finished, as one can see, to fuel the polemic between those defending the environment and the European automotive manufacturers.
The T&E report is accessible on line: http://www.transportenvironment.org (A.N./transl.jl)