MEPs call for greener vans

Committee votes in favour of a less demanding target than proposed by European Commission.

MEPs have called on the auto industry to make less-polluting vans starting from 2014, as part of the EU’s bid to cut transport’s growing contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions.

But the plans – voted on in the European Parliament’s environment committee this morning (27 September) – fall short of what the European Commission proposed and have been criticised by environmentalists as a setback for climate policy.

Under the original proposals from the Commission, industry would be required to reduce emissions from new light vehicles (vans and minibuses) to a fleet average of 175 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2016, with a further reduction to 135g CO2/km by 2020.

The MEPs agreed to stick to the Commission’s 2016 target, which is to be phased in from 2014. However, they voted for a less demanding 2020 target of 140g CO2/km, amid worries that the “crisis-hit” industry would struggle to adjust its production cycles in time.

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Martin Callanan, a British Conservative MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position, told European Voice that the outcome was “a sensible middle way” that would benefit the environment without harming “hard-pressed” manufacturers.

A version of his report was narrowly approved by the environment committee with 32 votes in favour, 25 against and 1 abstention.

Green MEPs were among those who voted against the report. Rebecca Harms, a German Green MEP, accused the centre-right European People’s Party and the Liberals of “capitulating to the demands of the auto-industry laggards”.

In a statement, Harms said: “It is seriously regrettable that MEPs have voted for weaker long-term limits on CO2 emissions from light vehicles and failed to make the short-term limits more ambitious. To add insult to injury, centre-right MEPs also voted for weaker penalties for failure to comply with emissions limits.”

Callanan dismissed the Greens’ view as “nonsense” and said that the changes that had been agreed were very small and would make little difference to the climate.

MEPs voted to reduce financial penalities on the auto industry from €120 per gram of CO2, per vehicle, to €95. This would bring the vans law in line with a sister regulation on cars that the EU agreed in 2009.

Transport and Environment, a campaign group, said that the committee vote was “out of touch” with developments in the industry, because companies, such as Volkswagen, Ford and Renault have all produced vans with reduced fuel consumption over relatively short timescales.

The full Parliament is expected to vote on the report in November.

After this vote, the legislative ball passes back to EU environment ministers, who are divided on the ambition of the 2020 target and the stringency of the fines for non-compliance. Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers, has set its sights on a political agreement before the end of the year.