CO2 Emissions reduction policy in Europe

[0707]

Laws forcing carmakers to limit CO2 are going to be set at pan-European level. Today, the average from vehicles is around 160 grams per kilometre. After much debate, the European Commission looks ready to ask for an overall cut in carbon dioxide emissions from new cars to 120 grams per kilometre by 2012.

While the vehicle manufacturers would be required to attain the 130-gramme mark, additional cuts of five grams per kilometre from both bio fuel use and other technology, such as better tyre design, would further contribute.

This Wednesday, EU sources say the Commission will suggest its strategy be implemented through binding legislation. The proposal is part of EU efforts to fight climate change, with European carmakers falling short of targets, which have been voluntary till now.

Ecologist expert Aat Peters argues for strict broad-ranging standards: "Every climate policy is a policy mix. So, there is technical innovation in cars, there is innovation in tyres, there is innovation in fuels, and many other aspects of policy like traffic management, etcetera. These are all elements which are important, but none of these elements should be exchanged for the other."

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association says its members reduced CO2 emissions by 13 percent to in 2004, compared to 1995 levels. Yet environmentalists say carmakers should take more responsibility for the emissions from bigger, more fuel-consuming engines.

Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee of the current EU presiding nation, Germany, which makes mostly big cars, said: "What we need is a code of good conduct which takes into account the sections of the market, so that the makers of smaller cars don't just sit back while those making the big ones bear the whole burden."

Cars on the EU's roads - their number increasing by some three million per year - create more than one-fifth of Europe's greenhouse-gas emissions.

EuroNews
7 of February 2007

 

[epoisses]

moltenmetal, I pay around 1.20 Euro a liter gasoil in Europe which is around 1.55 US$.
Unleaded gasoline today is 1.7777 US$/gas (

http://www.refiningonline.com/)

or 0.47 US$/liter net.
Gasoline in France is cheap compared to the UK or Holland or Scandinavian countries.

(and I knew Greg would counter the cost-benefit comment faster and better than I could )

 

[epoisses]

1.20 Euro a liter gasoline that is

 

[WGJ]

Here's some light reading on the matter:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Bill

 

[epoisses]

Excellent, thanks. Page 17 is especially interesting, it puts the sense of urgency that certain organisations try to propagate ("act radically now or the planet will be lost forever") in a perspective of several centuries.

 

[moltenmetal]

epoisses: I KNOW how much you pay- I was pointing out how little WE pay. This fact explains to a large extent why the European auto fleet is more fuel efficient by FAR than the North American one. Proof again that even if governments "waste" the tax money as you say they do in Europe, the deterrent property of the fuel pricing still works great. Imagine how much better a net improvement would be given if that money was put into a dedicated fund to offset the cost of energy efficiency improvements etc. rather than funding "other" priorities?!

Greg: they'd better be awfully careful with those sums! They got the sums wrong by a mile in the Pinto case- that gas tank reinforcement looked awfully cheap in hindsight..

 

[GregLocock]

Yes, we do have to be careful when we do those sums.

The only mistake the Pinto guys made in the calculations were not to factor in the punitive damages. They obviously weren't expecting to get whacked for doing something sensible.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[KENAT]

moltenmetal,

Up until now I'd generally thought you had a point, if not a little more extreme than my views.

If you read my earlier posts I made points about cars not being the only issue but all the other factors etc.

I'm not proposing to subsidize the poor, however, before we decide to tax in a way that impacts them more than others we should at least give them a realistic alternative.

From what I've seen, in many/most cases, the current state of public transport not just in the US but in the UK too does not make it a realistic alternative to having a car. I say this from experience, we didn't have car until I was around 10 and it was getting harder and harder to accommodate.

Before the tax is introduced isn't it reasonable to at least have an alternative in place. Many car owners, especially the poorer ones, aren't in a situation where they can just go out and trade their gas guzzler in for a small hybrid!

The environment and humankinds effect on it is a major issue that I do believe needs addressing but it isn’t the only one.

 

[jmw]

Norman Belle Gedes is credited by some for converting LA from the railroad centre in America into a car town with his exhibit at the 1939 Worlds Fair. After that date barely a tax dollar was spent on the railroads. Anywhere in the USA.

What it showed is that it is possible to greatly influence the future path of a nation.
The problem may be that the opportunity to make such a change again may not exist.

At the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th the vast majority of the population of any country was born, worked, lived and died within a very small geographical area.

The railways made little impression on this pattern of behaviour and we probably have to wait until after the second world war to see a much wider ownership of cars.

Cars have been the great liberating factor. They provided more than just an ability to travel from A to B with ease, they generated a mobility into the populations that never previously existed. That mobility has entirely transformed the way people live their lives. By that I mean that a significant proportion of the population now live and work in quite separate locations and young people no longer have to content themselves with following Pa into the mill but can go any distance to find work that suits them.

If we take away the car we may reverse all those benefits of being able to chose our work and our home. Just think of the impact of not being able to travel and find the job you want and a job that suits you and which exploits your talents to the utmost.

Here is a simple test. Think where you were born. Think what opportunities there were for you if you never moved more than 10 or twenty miles from home.

I suggest that without the car, finding work that suits each of our talents would take most of the population to a distance removed from the home town that, without the car, would be equivalent to emigrating. Perhaps that distance is only 20 or thirty miles.

If we are to eliminate cars, if we are to have a major improvement in public transport, we have to ask ourselves if that would ever be good enough to maintain the current pattern of life, maintain family ties or can we say just how profound the changes will be and what the consequences will be?


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com