April 12, 2008
Could carmakers win a carbon emission reprieve?
There has been much talk of the Franco-German motor that has traditionally propelled the European Union breaking down recently. So the cancellation of a meeting last week between the two countries to discuss proposals to cut pollution from cars led to plenty of puns.
The German press said the process has stalled but the French government said that was overblown. Whatever happens, the two biggest automakers in the European Union will have to strike a deal over whose companies will have to make the biggest changes to ensure the European Union meets - or at least comes close to - its climate change targets.
The gas-guzzling, supercharged German machines have a head start. Angela Merkel’s government has made clear that the continent’s biggest producer cannot accept European Commission plans for swingeing fines from 2012 for manufacturers who do not hit targets. Brussels’ draft directive calls for a 25 per cent cut to an average emission of 120g or carbon per kilometre by 2012.
Savvy punters in Brussels expect the date to slip to 2015. The European parliament, its members having one eye on the car plants in their constituencies, has already voted in favour of this.
ACEA, the carmakers’ lobby group, argues that since it takes five years to design a car they need that time to come up with the necessary models. And 6 out of 10 cars on the road now will still be on the road in 2012. Arguments that ACEA itself signed up voluntarily to such a target a decade ago are rebutted. Governments did not keep their side of the bargain through tax breaks, improving congestion and other measures to encourage consumers to embrace smaller cars, it says.
France, like Italy, makes smaller cars so is closer to the 2012 target and has less to lose. However, it also inherits the presidency of the EU in July and is desperate for some big successes. They are not going to come without German co-operation. France wants an outline deal by the time EU environment ministers meet in June.
Gloomy Commission officials and green groups expect a compromise that would put the EU even further off course from its target of cutting emissions by 20 per cent between 1990 and 2020. The meeting may have been cancelled but a Greenpeace protest went ahead. Transport is the only sector where emissions are growing and the European Environment Agency has already determined that the Commission’s car package is not radical enough.
If one sector does less, then others must do more. Allowing cars to burn more carbon will mean factories, power stations or households will have to burn even less.
This race is nowhere near as predictable as a grand prix, however. As one of those behind the wheel observed, national trade-offs between issues can produce unpredictable results. This race will be won on the last bend.
So, it takes five years to get a car from design to production. Well, what were the (mainly German) gas-guzzling-car-makers’ strategists doing in 2006 and 2007? Not looking at prospective EU legislation? Or were they looking and seeing - and warning their EU pressure-groups to get ready for some delaying action, so they could continue to make fat profits from their gas-guzzlers?
Sometimes one wishes the EU would really show its teeth.
Posted by: derek tunnicliffe | April 12th, 2008 at 5:35 pm | Report this commentIt would be no surprise to me that once again, manufacturers whine about compliance with regulations that will effect their bottom line. That is all any corporation worries about. Yes, they have a right to make money, but they also must balance that strategy with responsibility to the consumer and planet we ALL live on. It’s their planet too. One day, they may actually realize this. Not in our lifetime.
Posted by: G. Wychryst | April 13th, 2008 at 5:35 am | Report this commentIt would be interesting to hear the position of the British car industry (i.e. Morgan Motors) on the subject….Isn’t Britaqin one of Europe’s main economies ?
Posted by: john somer | April 13th, 2008 at 5:02 pm | Report this commentOne huge problem is that almost every Car Company has between 5 to 15 % of its stock ,debt and bonds in the hands of Oil Producing Sovereign Funds or their bankers the Hedge-Funds, so they always vote to delay electric hybrid batteries,to delay research in Hydrogen and delay new composite materials or use E-85 ethanol ( as well as ethanol jet fuel) , they sell oil and motor oils, so as long as these stockholders have a vested interest in “Gasoline-diesel-kerosene only”, we are going nowhere.
we need in Europe and the Americas a total overhaul of the political landscape,total.
Posted by: blogger | April 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm | Report this commentQuite right, John Somer. Britain’s even more luxury / sports orientated car manufacturers such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls Royce (and their tens of thousands of UK employees) have even more at stake from these looming EU rules than the French and Germans.
The fate of those jobs and vital exports will in fact be decided by EU majority vote, so while our government may ‘lobby’ it cannot in fact stop anything excessively harmful to our economy.
As regards MEPs “having one eye on the car plants in their constituencies”; only those lower down their party’s list have any realistic chance of losing their seats. Those at the top of the lists have no reason to give public opinion anything but the slightest regard, as only a monumental swing against their party could unseat them.
A powerless government? ‘Elected’ politicians who can actually afford to ignore public opinion? Surely not what most people understand by the idea of living in a democracy?
Posted by: Stuart Coster | April 15th, 2008 at 10:18 pm | Report this comment