Germany proposes four-year delay to EU ‘95 grams’ car goal
A German proposal circulated on the fringes of the EU Competitiveness Council on 27 September calls for phasing-in the EU’s 95 grams of CO2 per km (g/km) fuel efficiency standard for passenger cars over a four-year period ending in 2024.
The proposal, which has been confirmed to EurActiv by several diplomats, would apply the standard to 80% of national fleets in 2020, with a 5% increase in each of the following years, reaching 100% in 2024.
The green think tank Transport and Environment estimates that the scaling down of ambition would lead to an emissions standard of 104g/km in 2020, falling to 100g/km in 2022 before reaching 95g/km in 2024.
Sources close to Berlin say that while the country supports ambitious CO2 emission targets in the transport sector, “car producers should be able to reach the 2020 target in the most cost-effective manner.”
In 2007, the EU proposed legislation setting emission performance standards for new cars, which was adopted in 2009 by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers. Under today’s Cars Regulation, the fleet average to be achieved by all new cars is 130 grams of CO2 per km (g/km) by 2015 – with the target phased in from 2012.
Proposals published in 2012 have set further targets of 95g for new passenger cars by 2020, and 147 g/km for vans.
Source: Euractiv
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