Industry News
MEPs back 125g/km EU car C02 emissions standard for 2015
25th October 2007
The European Parliament, adopted yesterday by a large majority an Environment Committee report calling for legislation to cap average emissions from all new passenger cars at 125g CO2/km as of 2015.
MEPs agreed that "average emissions from all passenger cars placed on the EU market in 2015 do not exceed 125g CO2/km". (Taking account of the automobile industry's development and production cycles, MEPs decided to move away from an earlier proposal to introduce such a cap as of 1 January 2012).
At the same time, the EP backed plans to compel car makers to meet these targets by "technical means alone" - i.e. without relying on other CO2-saving measures, such as biofuels, special tyres, or improvements in air conditioning systems.
As of 2020, reads the report, such average emissions should not exceed 95g CO2/km. Long-term targets, urge MEPs, should be determined no later than 2016: these targets "will possibly require further emissions reductions to 70g CO2/km or less by 2025".
Recognizing, however, the difficulties that some specialist manufacturers may have in reducing average emissions across the limited range of cars they produce, the MEPs "stress the importance of allowing particular vehicles to exceed emission limits to avoid excessive disruptions to the car market. To that end, they also propose that each manufacturer have the right "to exclude 500 identified vehicles annually from inclusion in the data used to determine average emissions".
Finally, the report proposes the introduction - in 2011 - of a "Carbon Allowance Reductions System (CARS)", a market mechanism through which carmakers would have to pay penalties for exceeding the emissions limits. Such penalties, notes the text, "may be offset by redeemable credits awarded to newly registered passenger cars" (of the same manufacturer) whose emissions fall below the limit values.
On the other hand, low emission cars - such as hydrogen, fuel cell, and plug-in vehicles - should benefit from a credit system, "which should allow each vehicle of this type introduced between now and the first year of implementation to be counted under the CO2 monitoring procedure as equivalent to, for example, forty conventional vehicles".
Lastly, MEPs recommend the EU to introduce requirements for a minimum of 20% of the space devoted to car advertising to provide information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions.
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