Brussels wants to stimulate the introduction of electric cars by setting a deadline for phasing out the internal combustion engine and making automakers pay a carbon price as part of a plan to decarbonise the EU economy.
Frans Timmermans, European Commission Vice-President for Green Policies, told the Financial Times that Brussels is preparing a multi-pronged strategy to reduce the cost of electric vehicles and make cleaner cars “available to all Europeans”.
The Commission will put forward a series of measures this month to ensure that the EU can meet its target of reducing average CO2 emissions by 55 percent in 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
Timmermans said the measures would include tightening CO2 emission standards for new cars sold over the next decade and a proposal for automakers to pay for pollution under the EU’s market-based emissions trading scheme.
“We need to do these two things to kickstart the adoption of electric vehicles. We don’t believe that mere announcement of a deadline would do the trick, but that telling the industry – as we have all along – that we are going to get stricter emissions standards is actually sending the message and pushing it into action that direction, ”he said.
If your concern is [making it to] End of the month, the end of life on earth is not something to think about every day. . . What we present must also be credible from a social point of view
An EU official told the FT that Brussels was considering cutting average CO2 emissions from new cars by 100 percent by 2035 – a de facto deadline for the last of the gasoline and diesel cars to be sold in the EU. Volkswagen announced last week that it would end production of internal combustion engine vehicles in Europe by 2035.
When a target CO2 reduction of 37.5 percent for 2030 was agreed for the first time in 2018, the EU car emission standards were confronted with vigorous lobbying by vehicle manufacturers. This is likely to be revised to 60 percent in 2030 and 100 percent in 2035, the official said.
The EU aims to become the first major region to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Brussels will propose 13 legislative measures on July 14th to translate the objective into legal reality. The law has to be passed by a majority of MEPs and the 27 EU member states in order to enter into force.
Timmermans said the automotive industry’s approach “changed completely” as the sector invested in low-emission battery technology. According to the European Environment Agency, electric vehicles accounted for around 11 percent of new car registrations in the EU in 2020, tripling compared to the previous year.
“The automotive industry has really embraced the idea of decarbonization. There will always be a discussion about the pace, but I think they understand that this is the way to go, ”he said.
The existing inventory of the “dirtiest” vehicles on the road should also be discouraged by the inclusion of automakers in the bloc’s carbon pricing system, Timmermans said. Brussels is preparing plans to include transport and housing in a smaller carbon trading market where sectors have to buy and sell carbon credits based on their emissions.
Frans Timmermans said the EU’s multi-pronged strategy would cut costs and make cleaner cars accessible to all Europeans © Johanna Geron / Pool via AP
The carbon price proposal has been criticized by governments in poorer parts of the EU for disproportionately disadvantaging low-income consumers who cannot simply switch to electric vehicles or alternative environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Timmermans said Brussels will try to convince member states of the benefits of the system by proposing a social fund for climate action that would use a “significant” portion of the housing and transport carbon market revenues to strike the blow for those hardest hit To cushion households.
“It has to be substantial so that you can mitigate the impact on those who would be unevenly affected by the changes,” he said.
Timmermans, a Dutch social democrat, said emissions in the transport sector had risen in recent years, despite fears that France’s gilets jaunes could repeat itself in 2018 against the planned hike in gasoline taxes. Poor Eastern European countries have also warned that their fossil fuel-dependent economies could be penalized by rapid decarbonization.
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“The sense of urgency is not the same everywhere in Europe. If your overriding concern is [making it to] At the end of the month, you don’t think about the end of life on earth every day, ”he said.
“What we present must be socially credible. This is arguably the largest transformation operation in living memory. It’s going to be tough. ”
The Commission will also respond to calls for a more comprehensive e-charging infrastructure across the EU after research shows that three countries – France, the Netherlands and Germany – hosted 70 percent of all car charging points in the block.
Timmermans said the EU’s current target of 1 million charging points by 2025 is “modest” and Brussels will propose stricter requirements for charging points in smaller geographic areas later this month.
“We need to make sure that all Europeans can travel in an electric vehicle and charge it at a reasonable distance from where they are or where they live,” he said.
