Ahead of the first debate on Monday 26 June in the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), at a press briefing on Tuesday 20 June Yannick Jadot MEP (Greens/EFA, French) explained his ambitions for the text, which will set targets for reducing CO2 emissions from heavy goods vehicles.
Presented in February by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13121/1), the legislative proposal concerns urban, rural and long-distance lorries and buses, which are responsible for more than 6% of greenhouse gas emissions and 25% of road transport emissions in the EU. The initial proposal calls for emissions from new trucks and buses to be reduced by 45% from 2030, 65% in 2035 and 90% in 2040, and for these vehicles to run on batteries and hydrogen. In contrast, city buses are expected to reach the ‘zero emission’ target by 2030.
“Insufficient quotas”, according to the rapporteur. “The European Parliament was surprised by this proposal, because it is lower than the Commission’s own assessment, which estimated that 100% of new zero-emission trucks would be needed to meet the targets”, he pointed out. “The Commission is thus acknowledging that this sector will not contribute to neutrality to the extent of its responsibility, and that this responsibility will be transferred to other sectors of the economy or to families”, he lamented.
In his report, he therefore proposed raising the neutrality target for new vehicle sales to 100% by 2040, with intermediate stages: 60% from 2030 and 65% from 2035. He explained that he had obtained these figures from assessments carried out by think tanks. “That’s what carmakers are prepared to do, but on one condition: they must have the infrastructure to enable recharging” he stressed.
This measure would therefore be accompanied by a revision of the ‘AFIR’ regulation on the deployment of alternative fuel infrastructures, which has just been approved by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13187/35), thanks to the revision clause scheduled for 2026. It also hopes that, as soon as the regulation comes into force, a heavy vehicle forum will be set up with professionals from the sector, including manufacturers, hauliers, fuel suppliers and logistics providers.
Mr Jadot’s report aims to define a ‘zero-emission’ engine, which emits no more than one gram of CO2 per tonne-kilometre, in order to avoid hybrid systems, the use of which “manufacturers have no control over”.
For buses, the rapporteur also proposed amending the text to give preference to electric buses built in Europe.
Finally, he suggested extending the scope of application to all lorries, even those weighing less than five tonnes, such as construction equipment, fire engines and refuse trucks, which account for 20% of sales.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/7lw (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)