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Project done in Brussels on my 3. semester on the Danish School of Media and Journalism (International semester)
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EU legislation stands in the way of lighter cars
Foto: 1 -‐ Outside the EU Parliament, cars are waiting in line. According to NGO's future cars would be lighter and less polluting, if the legislation on co2 reduction was changed -‐ Foto: Michael Hjøllund
EU legislation on co2 emission discourages manufactures to think in lightweight solutions. “Short sighted and unfair,” says environment NGOs and the aluminium industry. By Michael Hjollund & Yasmine Saker NGOs and the aluminium industry criticize the EU Commission for proposing to maintain the current rules on how to calculate co2 targets for new cars. Today heavy cars are allowed to emit an additional amount of co2, and cars lighter than the average have to fulfil stricter targets. The reason for this is, that the current legislation uses the car’s weight as the so-‐called utility parameter, which calculates the specific target for a given manufacture. Richard Smokers, an expert from the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and the main author of a review of the current legislation, requested by the Commission themselves, concludes that the current weight based system ha a build-‐in drawback. “Mass as utility parameter has the disadvantage that it does not fully reward manufactures applying weight reduction. If you are the only one to apply weight reduction, then a part the reduction is eaten up because you get a lower target, Smokers explains.
According to Smokers, this leaves manufactures in a “first-‐movers dilemma”; the first manufacture to invest heavily in light weighting to cut co2 emissions will have to meet stricter targets, than manufactures who cut co2 by investing in fuel-‐efficient engines, for example. This poses a problem, as light weighting will have to play a bigger role in the future effort to reduce co2 emission According to Peter Mock, the Europe lead of the International Council of Clean Transportation, an independent non-‐profit organization promoting energy efficiency in the transport sector, disfavouring light weighting will cause extra expenses in the future. “Having a disincentive for weight reduction will lead to a situation where society will have to pay more than is actually necessary, because other more expensive technical solutions will be applied instead of weight reduction,” Mock says. Alternative system is ready for use The alternative utility parameter, which the TNO review suggests, is based on the car’s footprint, the area between the four wheels of the car. A footprint-‐based system would mean that manufactures get full credit regarding cutting co2 when using light weighting. If they decrease the weight of their cars, they no longer have to meet a higher co2 target. Initially, when the current legislation was proposed in 2009, the Commission had no choice but to use the vehicles weight as the utility parameter. The reason for that was, this was the only system, where the needed data was available. However, already from 2011, data to support a footprint-‐based system has been collected, and according to Peter Smokers from TNO, the Commission now has access to data needed to implement a footprint-‐based system. According to Cecile Toubeau, policy officer in the environmental NGO Transport & Environment, a footprint-‐based system should be implemented already moving from 2015 to 2020 alongside with the mass based system being phased out. This would benefit green transport. “Moving towards footprint enables more technologies and new opportunities to open up in the future,” she says. Changes will harm the industry Despite the review’s conclusion, and critique from the NGOs, the Commission refuses to change the system. Their main concern right now is to ensure stability for the industry. “It was considered that providing certainty for manufacturers ruled out a change of the basis for the regulation for 2020,” the Commission states on their website. For the manufactures themself, the suggestion of changing the utility parameter is met by fierce resistance. Car producers point out that production plans for new cars have already been made for 2020, and changing the regulation now will be a costly affair for the industry.
“You don’t just change one parameter. In reality it means manufactures are treated under totally different conditions. They have invested billions into new engines, powertrains and so on and suddenly that is wasted,” says Petr Dolejsi, Director of Mobility and Sustainable Transport of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Dolejsi sees that even though the EU talks about long-‐term goals, declining sales and struggling car industry, is a pressing issue “Visions are nice, but you have to transfer that into reality. You have to cope with current problems and the current situation on the market.” Unfair competition One of the industries that are pushing for a change from a mass based parameter to footprint, is the aluminium industry. They are offering the car industry lightweight materials as a way to make the cars lighter, and thereby cut their fuel consumption and co2 emission. Patrik Ragnarsson, automotive and transport technological manager at the European Aluminium Association believes that the Commission is holding back investments in light weighting, by disfavouring the technology in their choice of utility parameter. “Regulations driving technologies should be neutral, otherwise someone who does not have full knowledge on the area are deciding on what technologies that are to used. The EU should not pick winners and losers,” he says. According to the manufactures themselves, the current legislation is not the reason why light weighting is a less popular solution among car producers. “You have plenty of solutions that can reduce co2 that can be done in a much more affordable way,” says Petr Dolejsi from the ACEA. Patrik Ragnarsson disagrees. “If I was the car company choosing between doing engine efficiency improvements or light weighting it is quite obvious what solution I would chose under these circumstances,” he says. Decreasing opposition from the parliament In the European parliament, the discussion of utility parameter was already undertaken in 2009. At the time, the Green Group proposed amendments that would force the utility
Foto: 2 The aluminium industry accuse the EU to pick winners such as hybrid engines, and disfavouring light weighting, when it comes to cutting co2 in the car industry -‐ Foto: Yasmine Saker
parameter to be changed as soon as the needed data for using footprint as parameter was available. Back then, the group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats supported the proposal. Today however, the situation seems to have changed. Dan Jørgensen, member of the Green Group, and vice chair in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, states that the chance might have passed for change in this regulation. “Even though you theoretically could argue that it would be better for the environment to change the parameter, I think we have learned a few lessons from for instance the carbon emission trading system, where we made so many changes in the legislation that we created a monster” Rebecca Harms, leader of The Greens in the European Parliament disagrees. To her, the legislation has proved not to be sufficient. “It’s now very obvious that there are a lot of loopholes in the legislation, loopholes that undermine the environmental goal. In this respect there is room for improvements,” she states.