Climate Change, Environment, Europe, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines

CLIMATE CHANGE: Don&#39t Drive It Too Far

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Sep 6 2007 (IPS) - Carmakers in Europe are missing their targets for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases their vehicles release, new data indicates.

In 1998, the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), promised that the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by their cars would fall to 140 grams per kilometre (140g/km) by 2008.

Data gathered by the European Commission suggests that ACEA will almost certainly fail to hit that target.

In 2006, its cars emitted an average of 160g of CO2, the main gas blamed by scientists for causing climate change, a drop of only 0.2 percent on the previous year.

ACEA bands together the manufacturers of more than 80 percent of the cars driven on Europe&#39s roads, including Renault, Fiat, Volvo, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors and Volkswagen.

The data, which has not yet been formally published, also suggests that despite how climate change has featured increasingly prominently on the international political agenda, the typical cars found in some EU countries are emitting more CO2 now or just a fraction less than the average European vehicle did in the mid 1990s.

In 1995, the average European car emitted 186 g/km. In Sweden, Finland and Estonia last year, the typical cars emitted between 179 and 190 g/km.

Europe&#39s best-performing countries, on the other hand, were Portugal (144g/km), Italy (148g/km) and France (149g/km).

The proliferation of large cars such as sports utility vehicles (SUVs) has had a negative effect on efforts to improve the fuel efficiency of cars. The weight of the average new car sold in the EU rose from 1,347 kg in 2004 to 1,374kg last year.

The European Federation for Transport and the Environment (T&E), a green campaign group, says that EU policymakers should resist lobbying from carmakers to allow weight be used as a criterion in determining the CO2 emissions from different models of vehicles.

"Over the last decade cars have become heavier every year and this is an important reason why we have higher emission levels," T&E spokesman Aat Peterse told IPS. "The heavier a car, the more CO2 emissions there will be."

The total amount of CO2 released by Europe&#39s transport sector rose by 32 percent between 1990 and 2005, with cars comprising about half of that increase.

T&E favours having either across-the-board emission rules for cars or using footprint – the area between a vehicle&#39s four wheels – as a temporary measure to determine different levels of CO2 from different models. The latter approach has been used in U.S. legislation on emissions.

"If weight is used as a parameter to differentiate cars, then the SUV will be treated advantageously," Peterse added. "It&#39s important that there be an avenue for downsizing engines and using lighter material. If weight is used as a parameter, then there will be no incentive for the carmaker to follow this avenue."

But Sigrid de Vries of ACEA claimed that the car industry has "made a lot of progress" in improving its environmental record.

She defended efforts to have different treatment for bigger cars than smaller ones by arguing that emission limits in promised EU legislation will be based on averages. "There will be cars that will be bigger and heavier and use more fuel, which emit more CO2," she said. "But there will also be smaller cars that emit less.

"It&#39s clear that the targets will be ambitious and I&#39m sure we&#39ll be ambitious. Whatever car you are talking about, CO2 emissions will have to go down. There&#39s no getting away from it."

Next week (Sep. 12), the European Parliament&#39s environment committee is scheduled to adopt its stance on a proposed EU law on emissions from cars.

This follows a recommendation tabled by the EU executive, the Commission, in February last that a limit of 130g/km should be placed on such emissions. That proposal was viewed as a victory for the car lobby, as Commission officials had indicated that they favoured a more stringent target of 120g/km.

Chris Davies, the British Liberal who has been tasked with preparing the Parliament&#39s response to that proposal, is advocating that from 2015, no new car that exceeds the 120g threshold by more than 100 percent should be placed on the market.

As some 223 amendments have been drafted by his colleagues, it is likely that some of his key recommendations could be altered once they are put to a vote.

Davies is urging that ads for cars should be subject to something along the lines of the health warnings found on cigarette packets. Each ad, including those in showroom displays, should have at least one-fifth of its surface devoted to information in an approved format concerning CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency, he believes.

He is seeking, too, that no new passenger cars – with the exception of those designed for the police or military – will be permitted if they can go faster than 162 km per hour, 25 percent above the highest speed limit in most EU countries.

Davies describes the current system where carmakers can disregard speed limits and fuel efficiency in making cars as "political and environmental lunacy".

"The European Union not only seeks to reduce CO2 emissions from its vehicles but also wants to safeguard its energy security," he said. "It does not permit vehicles that fail to meet safety standards onto the market, so why does it allow the sale of vehicles that use excessive amounts of fuel and have been designed to be able to break legal road speed limits introduced on the grounds of road safety?"