EEA says vans set to meet EU regulated CO2 target four years early
Thu 03 July 2014
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The European Environment Agency (EEA) says that preliminary data shows that the average van sold in 2013 was around 4 % more efficient than the previous year, so the new vans fleet has already met the collective carbon emissions target ahead of the 2017 deadline.
There were 1.2 million new vans registered in 2013, with average emissions of 173.3 g of CO2 per kilometre. This means emissions were below the 175g target four years ahead of the 2017 deadline.
The EEA, which started monitoring the emissions of light commercial vehicles last year, says that the findings are similar to those recently published for new cars, which have also met their tailpipe CO2 target for 2015 two years in advance of the European regulations.
The Brussels-based NGO T&E says that it had criticised the lack of ambition in the 2017 vans target, which was agreed in 2010, and that it has already warned that vans had almost reached the 2017 limit four years in advance of the legal mandate.
The 2020 target of 147g requires an improvement of 15%, significantly less than the 25% improvement the EU requires for its passenger cars.
T&E senior policy officer, William Todts, said: "The new EEA figures confirm what we’ve said since 2010: the vans target is a joke. This regulation is not delivering lower fuel costs for businesses, it’s not driving the supply of ultra-clean urban delivery vehicles and does little or nothing to offset emissions from increasing traffic."
T&E says that vans are one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 emitted from transport in Europe – they increased by 26% between 1995 and 2010 and now account for 8% of the EU’s road transport emissions.
T&E is calling on the Commission to strengthen CO2 emissions targets for vans.
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