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8 Eur. Envtl. L. Rev. 101 (1999)
Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Cars: An Environmental Agreement at EU Level

handle is hein.kluwer/eelr0008 and id is 103 raw text is: European Environmental Law Review April 1999 101 Carbon Dioxide Emissions and the ACEA Agreement Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Cars: An Environmental Agreement at EU Level Dr Jan Bongaerts The European Commission, Bonn Summary: The EU's commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and its three pillars strategy. The environmental agreement entered into with the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA); execution of the agreement; its contents; assessment by the Commission; the position of non- members of ACEA. Intermediate evaluation of the agreement. Reasons for adopting an environmental agreement rather than formulating legislation- uncertainty about the relative success of different technological measures, changes in marketing mix and keeping the global playing field level. Conclusion that the challenge will consist in putting the agreement into practice. Figure 1: EU Strategy for CO2 Emissions Reduction in the Passenger Road Transport Sector Target Group Instrument Industry Environmental agreement and Council Recommendation Users Users All Council decision Council Directive Council Directive Purpose To reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars To inform drivers on fuel economy and CO2 emissions performance of vehicles To stimulate decisions on car purchase through fiscal incentive schemes To provide instruments for policy evaluation Source: European Commission3 From a legal point of view, the most interesting and challenging instrument is undoubtedly the environmental agreement with the European automobile industry repre- sented by ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. This agreement has been carefully prepared, both in negotiations between the European Commission and ACEA, but also in consultations with the Council and the European Parliament. 1. Introduction 2. The Environmental Agreement In tackling the reduction of CO2 emissions the European Commission is facing a multitude of issues and tasks. The objective is clear, since the European Union has agreed on an 8 per cent cut in emissions of a basket of climate change gases, of which CO2 is the most important, by 2008-2012.' The Commission is convinced that this commitment puts the European Union in a front-runner position in climate change policy-making. At present, there seems not to exist any abatement technology which would capture CO2 from exhaust gases resulting from combustion processes.2 Any effective CO2 emissions reduction policy must therefore aim at environmentally sound technologies based upon a reduction of the use of energy resources which contain carbon, in other words, upon improved energy efficiency in combustion processes. This challenge is particularly important in the transport sector, because of the general expectation that CO2 emissions from this sector are likely to increase if no corrective action is taken. Irrespective of past achievements in energy efficiency in transport, i.e., improvements in fuel use per passenger mile travelled, substantial growth in passenger transport has led, ,and will lead, to increases in CO2 emissions which may make it impossible to meet the overall 8 per cent reduction target set by the European Union at the negotiations on the greenhouse gas protocol in Kyoto in 1997. In order to address the problem of CO2 and transport, the European Union has developed a strategy based upon three pillars and an overall monitoring system, as repre- sented in Figure 1: The overall strategy of the European Commission on the reduction of CO2 emissions from passenger cars was outlined in the Commission document COM(95) 689 and resulted in the three pillars strategy depicted in Figure 1.4 This strategy was endorsed by the Council in its conclusions of 25 June 1996. In particular, the Council specified that the objective of the strategy should be to achieve an average CO2 emissions figure for new passenger cars of 120 g/km by 2005 or by 2010 at the latest.5 The Council also accepted the instrument of an environmental agreement as a means of committing the industry to making the major contribution to this objective. Initially, the European Parliament was opposed to the idea of such an agreement and called on the Commission to See European Commission, CO2 and Cars, at http://euro- a.eu.int/dgl I /co2/co2 intr.htm. Strictly speaking, this is not correct since CO2 is being recovered in some industrial installations for commercial purposes- See, e.g_, Sam A Rishing: CO2 Recovery from Flue Gas, in ISWA (ed), International Directory of Solid Waste Management 1998/99, London, James and James, pp. 232 et seq. But there is no technology to recover CO2 from cars. 3 See Internct site at note 1, supra. 4 This sector is based upon the European Commission's Commu- nication to the Council and the European Parliament COM(95) 689, A Community strategy to reduce C02 emissions from passenger cars and improve fuel economy. s See http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg I I/co2/co2 comm.htm. Copyright' 2007 by Kluwer Law International. All rights reserved. No claim asserted to original government works.

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