Archived press release

Tory MEPs must support party line and not compromise on tough climate change action

24 October 2007

Conservative MEPs must support the recommendations of their Quality of Life working group and not promote a much weaker compromise in a key vote on European climate change policy today, said Friends of the Earth.

The European Parliament will give its views on standards for new car fuel efficiency in a vote tomorrow. This is a key plank of EU policy to reduce transport's contribution to climate change, and a leading Conservative MEP, Martin Callanan, who represents the North East, has jointly proposed an amendment that would weaken possible EU targets and would also be weaker than the recommendation of the party's Quality of Life policy group in their final report published last month [1]. Research has shown that making cars more fuel-efficient would make the single biggest contribution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from transport [2].

The EU is currently deciding what should follow the current voluntary agreement with car manufacturers, which has failed to deliver the promised cuts in new car carbon dioxide emissions. In the mid 1990s the EU agreed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars to no more than 120 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre (g/km CO2) by 2012. As a milestone on the path to this target, the industry agreed in the late 1990s to reduce average emissions from new cars to no more than 140g/km CO2 by 2008 (a reduction of around 25% within a decade). They have failed to meet this target, and average emissions currently stand at 160g/km CO2 [3].

The report of the Conservatives' Quality of Life policy group said "the UK should therefore strongly support negotiations of a binding 120g by 2012 target for reducing carbon emissions from passenger cars" [4]. However Mr Callanan has proposed an amendment [5] setting a target of 125g/km CO2 by 2015 - a weaker target with more time for the car industry to comply. This amendment will be voted on tomorrow.

Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth's Senior Transport Campaigner said: "Tory MEPs must support tough action on reducing emissions from cars and not push a compromise which would make the car industry think Christmas had come early. This is a key test of Tory claims to be serious about tackling climate change".

Cars are responsible for one-eighth (12.6 %) of the UK's total carbon dioxide emissions [6]. A car's carbon dioxide emissions are directly related to its fuel efficiency. The more fuel a car uses, the more carbon dioxide it emits.

The European Commission is expected to make a formal legislative proposal at the end of this year. This will be discussed and voted on by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, with final agreement probably being reached in 2009. Tomorrow's vote will send an important signal to the Commission about the Parliament's views, and will help set the tone for future negotiations.

Notes

[1] Quality of Life Policy Group `Blueprint for a Green Economy: submission to the Shadow Cabinet'
www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=138484

[2] Bartlett School of Planning (University College London) and Halcrow Group for the Department for Transport (2006) `Looking over the horizon'
www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucft696/documents/Executive_summary_Jan_2006_HR.pdf (PDF† )

[3] Transport & Environment `Reducing CO2 emissions from new cars - 2006 progress report on the car industry's voluntary commitment'
www.transportenvironment.org/docs/Publications/2007/ ¬
2007-09_progress_voluntary_commitment_2006.pdf (PDF† )

[4] `Blueprint for a Green Economy' paragraph 8.4.2.1

[5] See amendment 042
www.europarl.europa.eu/sce/server/internet/amend_motions_texts/ ¬
sce_amend_motions_texts_main_02.jsp?ref=A6-0343/2007

[6] From DEFRA statistics `Estimated emissions of carbon dioxide by IPCC source category'
www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/download/xls/gatb05.xls

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust