By Chris Jones - 28th August 2006
Car makers must take urgent action to meet agreed reductions in CO2 emissions or face the threat of tough new EU rules, the European commission said on Tuesday.
Manufacturers from Europe, Japan and Korea pledged in 1998/99 to voluntarily reduce carbon dioxide emissions in new cars to 140g/km by 2008/09, but the latest figures show that they are still far from attaining that goal.
Data from 2004 showed that while emissions had fallen by 12.4 per cent since 1995 to an average of 161g/km, the rate of progress remains slow, with cuts of more than twice that level necessary to meet the deadline.
The EU’s long-term aim is to reduce emissions to just 120g/kg by 2010, a target that now seems decidedly ambitious.
“The reductions are welcome but by no means satisfactory,” a commission spokesman said on Tuesday.
He said that Brussels was considering the possibility of legally binding measures if the manufacturers failed to meet the targets, which remained “feasible”.
“The commission has always been clear that it won’t hesitate to replace the carrot with the stick if the targets are not met,” the spokesman said.
But he declined to comment on what sort of measures would be considered, or when they might be introduced.
“The figures are a warning, but there is no need to panic yet,” he said.
He said that emission reduction rates would have to increase to around 3.3 per cent a year for European and Korean producers, and by 3.5 per cent for Japanese producers, if the targets were to be met.
European and Japanese manufacturers reduced emissions by just 1.2 per cent between 2003 and 2004, a slowdown compared to previous years
But the impressive reductions achieved by Korean car makers – 6.1 per cent between 2003 and 2004 – showed that the goals were still “technically feasible”, the spokesman said.
“We will cross the bridge [of what action to take and when] when we come to it, but we are not there yet,” he said.
Green groups welcome tough stance
Road transport accounts for one fifth of all CO2 emissions in the EU, with passenger cars responsible for more than half this figure.
But despite EU efforts, total emissions by EU road users have increased 22 per cent since 1990, mainly due to the increase in the number of cars on the road, and the length of the journeys taken.
Environmental groups welcomed the commission’s commitment to tough action if car makers fail to live up to their responsibility.
“The one piece of good news in the commission report is the acknowledgement that legally-binding options to reduce emissions are now on the table,” said Jos Dings of the European federation for transport and environment.
“The existing voluntary commitment with carmaker associations lacks transparency and fails to punish poor performance or reward progress.”
“It’s important that any future legislative proposal holds individual carmakers to account, gives incentives to cut emissions and punishes those that fail.”
But he said that T&E’s own assessment of car makers’ progress, which also includes data from 2005, shows that the commission’s faith in manufacturers’ ability to meet their targets may be misplaced.
T&E’s figures suggest that European manufacturers cut emissions by just 1 per cent between 2004/05, while Japanese car makers reduced theirs by 2 per cent.
And Korean manufacturers suffered a relapse after their impressive display in 2003/04 with a 1 per cent increase in emissions.
“For the remaining three or four years, car makers will have to reduce the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of their products at an annual rate of four to five per cent,” said Dings.
“This is unprecedented and three to four times the rate of reduction achieved in previous years.”
Car makers ‘doing enough’
Ivan Hodac, secretary general of ACEA, the European automobile manufacturers association, which represents 13 car manufacturers such as Renault, Ford, Fiat and Volkswagen, said that industry was already doing all it could to cut emissions, and that other regulatory measures should be introduced to speed up the process.
“There is now a need to link the taxation of cars and of alternative fuels more vigorously to CO2 emissions. This will be an effective strategy to reduce further passenger car related CO2 emissions,” he said.
And he refuted the EU’s claims that progress was not being made fast enough.
“A particular feature in the year 2004 was the sharp rise in new registrations of cars emitting 120g CO2/km or less. From a zero market share in the mid-1990s, such cars achieved a 7.7 per cent share in 2004, with sales of almost one million units.”
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