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EU prepares new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from car air conditioning

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Published 10 February 2003, updated 14 December 2012
Tags
F-gases, fluorinated gases, global warming

In a special stakeholder Conference on 10-11 February 2003, the Commission is discussing options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from mobile air conditioners.

The increased use of air conditioning in European cars is cancelling out the targeted reductions of carbon dioxides from vehicles. The EU wants to cut average CO 2 emissions from new cars to 140g/km by 2008 through voluntary agreements signed with the car industry.

A few EU Member States have already introduced legislative measures to deal with the climate effects of car air conditioning: Austria has a ban on the use of HFCs in mobile air conditioners from 1 January 2008, and Denmark has introduced a tax on the use of all fluorinated gases. Germany issued in September 2002 a consultation paper dealing with possible legislation on F-gases and held a stakeholders debate on the issue end of January 2003.

In a consultation paper for the stakeholder conference, the Commission's DG Environment services have undertaken an assessment of the impact of mobile air conditioners on the EU's greenhouse gas emissions up to 2010 and 2020. The results of these forecasting exercises are much higher than what was originally foreseen in the EU's European Climate Change Programme (ECCP): between 31 and 53 Mt CO 2 eq in 2010 and between 54 and 90 Mt Mt CO 2 eq in 2020.

The consultation paper also looks at several options to reduce GHG emissions:

  • containment of HFC emissions through better design;
  • phase out of HFC 134a and use of alternative refrigerants such as hydrocarbons, HFC 152a and . The first commercial applications of mobile air conditioning systems using CO 2 as the refrigerant are underway (e.g. Toyota).
The Commission's consultation paper concludes: "Containment of HFC 134a is possible but seems rather expensive. Substitutes for HFC 134a are available and seem to be the more cost-effective solutions. Overall the conclusion of this paper is that it is possible to phase out the refrigerant without excessive cost".

 

Positions: 
In a position paper reacting to the Commission's consultation study, the European Fluorocarbon Technical Committee (EFCTC) stated that the Commission's scenarios are too pessimistic. According to the EFCTC, the real world emissions data of HFC-134a are less negative than what the Commission's scenarios indicate and there is ample scope for improvement in environmental performance of the existing HFC-134a air conditioning systems.

 

Next steps: 
  • The Commission is preparing a Community wide regulatory framework for fluorinated gases. This framework is expected to be ready by the end of September 2003.

 

Background: 
Mobile air conditioning systems (MACs) are a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through direct emissions of fluorinated gas (mainly HFC-134a) and indirect emissions of carbon dioxides from increased fuel use. On 10 October 2000, the Environment Council requested the Commission to "study and prepare measures in reduction of all greenhouse gas emissions from air conditioning in vehicles". Following the completion of two unpublished cost/benefit studies, the Commission is organising a two-day conference with around 120 invited or nominated stakeholders to examine the different options to reduce the climate change impact of these mobile air conditioners.

 

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