The members of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) are fully committed to further reducing CO2 emissions. Our industry has already made significant improvements to the CO2 performance of new vehicles. Today, emissions from new cars are 35.7% lower than two decades ago. By 2021 those emissions will have fallen by 42% when compared to 2005, and we are committed to do more.
However, current CO2 legislation solely focuses on reducing emissions from new cars and vans, which only make up 5% of Europe’s fleet. So, if we want to reduce emissions further, we also need to look at the impact of the use of vehicles on emissions.
A comprehensive approach can reduce CO2 emissions more effectively by drawing on a full spectrum of solutions, whether this relates to the vehicle itself, alternative powertrains, faster fleet renewal, intelligent transport systems (ITS), improving infrastructure or altering driver behaviour. Combined with the industry’s continuous investments in vehicle technology, such measures have the potential to combat CO2 emissions more effectively. ACEA members therefore advocate an ambitious comprehensive approach to complement CO2 targets, in order to reduce CO2 emissions more successfully.
Stakeholder dialogue
To gain a better insight into the potential of such an approach, ACEA brought together the expertise of more than 50 relevant transport-related stakeholders throughout 2015. Main aim of this consultation was to identify the technologies and approaches that, according to the various stakeholders, can have the greatest impact on reducing CO2 from cars and vans by 2030. These findings have now been summarised in a report entitled ‘Joining forces to tackle the road transport CO2 challenge’, which can be found here.
The report demonstrates that the comprehensive approach is not just a theoretical concept, but instead a real-world paradigm shift supported by a wide range of stakeholders. Consequently, this is not an ACEA report: as such its contents do not represent the positions of ACEA or its members. Rather, it belongs to those whose combined contributions show the enormous potential that joining forces could deliver for reducing CO2 emissions.
ACEA’s position
As Europe’s automobile industry we have also learnt a lot from this process. By listening to all those stakeholders we came to better understand the potential of all innovative solutions out there, and how these can be best realised in the most cost-effective way. These thought-provoking exchanges helped us to define our industry’s position, which has now been summarised in a position paper that outlines ACEA’s contribution to the debate on post-2020 CO2 targets. Discover our recommendations for further reducing CO2 emissions from passenger cars and light commercial vehicles after 2020 by clicking here.
Article by acea.be