Cars deal finalised in EU
The deal on cars & CO2 has just been adopted in the EU.
To be honest the carmakers have made a wreck of this deal, with the politicians taking the back seat instead of putting themselves firmly behind the wheel and taking some positive action on climate change. The new law won’t force carmakers into making any reductions in the short term but we do have a crucial target for 2020 of 95g CO2 per km, even if it is up for review at a later stage. With CO2 emissions from cars running at around 158 g per km, it could make quite a difference. And we could be reaping benefits from that legally binding target sooner than the next decade.
© Greenpeace / Uwe H. Martin
The car makers might feel they’ve got away with it by lobbying hard for a phase in that means they have an extra 3 years to fully comply with the 2012 target of 130g per km. But can they really afford to wait or will they be changing up a gear to get CO2 emissions down long before that?
If they stall again and put off making any changes until the last moment they’ll have to make drastic improvements across their fleet to save an extra 35g per km in just 5 years. So it’s clear that the carmakers can’t sit and do nothing - that 95 gram target is a steep reduction and even if it does change when it’s reviewed they can’t be sure of the outcome of that just yet. So they’ve got 11 years to get fuel efficient cars on the production line.
