During the plenary session (25-28 March 2019) in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs debate on the emission performance standards for new passenger cars and for new light commercial vehicles. Statement by Miriam DALLI (S&D, MT), Rapporteur, Miguel ARIAS CAÑETE, Member of the EC in charge of Climate Action and Energy, Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE) and Tiemo WÖLKEN (S&D, DE).

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

emissions of vehicles (T)

ARIAS CAÑETE, Miguel (EPP, ES, EC)

DALLI, Miriam (S&D, MT)

GIESEKE, Jens (EPP, DE)

DELLI, Karima (Greens/EFA, FR)

WÖLKEN, Tiemo (S&D, DE)

Emission performance standards for new passenger cars and for new light commercial vehicles: extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (English), Miriam DALLI (S&amp;D, MT), Rapporteur , <p>The final CO2 reduction targets agreed upon during the trial open negotiations for 2025 and 2030 are a step in this direction. But these are just the beginning of a transitory path towards the economy of the future. And after a number of meetings with Council on the European Commission we managed to agree that new cars will need to admit thirtyseven point five per cent less CO2 and new vans will need to emit 31 per cent less CO2 from 2030 onwards.</p>

SOUNDBITE (English), Miguel ARIAS CA&#209;ETE, Member of the EC in charge of Climate Action and Energy, The agreement reached by European Parliament and the Council is an important achievement. And together with the legislation on the heavy duty vehicles marks the completion of comprehensive legislative framework on climate and clean energy for 2013.

SOUNDBITE (English), Miguel ARIAS CA&#209;ETE, Member of the EC in charge of Climate Action and Energy, Together with the targets agreed for heavy duty vehicles will lead to a 24 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from road transport in 2030 compared to 2005 and this will help member states to reach their binding targets under the airport sharing regulation and for European Union to deliver its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

SOUNDBITE (French), Karima DELLI (Greens/EFA, FR), Transport is responsible for 30 percent of CO2 emissions in Europe and most of those come from road transport and we wanted to reduce emissions not tomorrow but by 2030. We want a thirty seven point five percent reduction and those who are trying to postpone the fight against climate warming are just climate skeptics. So I would like to ask Mr. Tavares. Would you like to be on the right side of history? And now try to produce low emission vehicles because we're doing it, because it's better for the climate and it's better for the environment and our future.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), Tomorrow we're going to vote on serious restrictions for CO2 limits for LCD and passenger vehicles to 15 percent by 2020 for passenger vehicles and thirtyseven point five for 2030. Now some people in this house think it's too far exaggerated that figure and others think that it's not nearly enough. Climate change is an enormous issue, that's true, but to achieve these values is not going to be child's play on the contrary. We have gone beyond the original Commission's proposal with the result of our negotiations.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), The one sided stress on electric vehicles would have just transferred the pressure from fossil fuels to fuel plants. We have now a compromise. So 15 percent by 2025 is realistic and to go beyond there it is important to check this by 2023. Also 31 percent for commercial vehicles is acceptable too.

SOUNDBITE (German), Tiemo W&#214;LKEN (S&amp;D, DE), And it is right that calculating synthetic fuels in the car industry was excluded because we know that with the structures that we have available we have to make better use of fuel in aviation for example as we do it already with the heavy duty vehicles, where it can be calculated into to it.