By Martin Banks - 3rd July 2007
Car manufacturers should face tougher targets to curb CO2 emissions, a hearing in the European parliament will be told on Wednesday.
UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies is expected to tell the meeting that average emissions from new cars should be cut by more than a quarter by 2015, and by 42 per cent by 2020.
This would require carbon emissions to be reduced by 120g CO2-km and 95g CO2/km respectively.
Latest figures suggest that new cars placed on the European market are emitting an average of 162 CO2/km.
The target proposed by Davies is more ambitious than the 20 per cent suggested in January by the commission but, he says, gives the industry more time in order to make the design changes necessary.
Today’s parliamentary hearing, organised by Davies and German ALDE deputy, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, is designed to look at ways of reducing CO2 emissions from cars and other vehicles.
Other speakers include Johannes Liebl, a vice-president with German car maker BMW, Jos Dings, director of the European Federation for Transport and Environment, Greg Archer, director of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and Marc Chasserot, managing director of Shecco.
Davies, who presented his proposals to the environment committee earlier this month, will use today's event to repeat his call for a major shift in the advertising of new cars, with 20 per cent of all space devoted to information about fuel economy and CO2 emissions.
“We give information to smokers about the effects of cigarettes, so why should we not insist that car makers give customers more information about emissions from the vehicles they sell?”
His report on the commission’s proposals is due to be voted at committee stage in September and parliament’s full plenary in October.
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