Carmakers ask for CO2 cap delay[de] 

The European Carmakers' Association, ACEA, on 15 May, called on the Commission to allow manufacturers sufficient preparation time before implementing legislation that would force them to cut CO2 emissions from new cars to an average of 130 grammes per kilometre across the fleet. 

The EU's executive wants the target to be met by 2012, but ACEA President Sergio Marchionne argued that this would be too soon as the legal framework will probably not be ready before 2009. By then, he said, the cars of 2012 will have left the drawing tables. "The industry must be granted sufficient lead time to meet any new requirements, and the first feasible date for that to be accomplished is 2015," he stressed. 

Marchionne added that the Commission's plan to place nearly the entire burden of CO2 reductions on the vehicle industry – neglecting other more industry-friendly means of reducing CO2, such as traffic management, biofuels and taxation – would cost Europe thousands of jobs. 

But environmentalists are accusing carmakers of attempting to shirk their responsibilities by calling for such an integrated approach and point out the industry's failure to reduce CO2 emissions on a voluntary basis. 

A voluntary agreement, signed with the Commission in 1998, requires European car manufacturers to bring average fleet CO2 emissions down to 140 g/km by 2008. But they have so far only succeeded in bringing the figure down to 163 g/km. The Commission now wants overall emission levels down to 120 g/km by 2012, with carmakers to bear the responsibility of bringing the figure down to 130 g/km through improved engine technology alone. 

Parliament has yet to approve the Commission's plan, but according to various press reports, UK Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, who is rapporteur on the proposal, could propose extending the timeframe – possibly to 2014, when new rules on other pollutant emissions from cars, known as Euro 6, come into force. 

"It takes years to change production lines and research the technology. We don't want to chase the industry out of Europe," the Financial Times reported him as saying.