EU continues to backpedal on CO₂ standards

Just the other day, we heard the European Union was thinking of lowering its CO₂ standards for automakers. It appears that the rumors were true, as the European Parliament has indeed voted to amend the proposed standards. The details are pretty difficult to follow, as this particular issue has been going on for an excruciatingly long time, so bear with us here. The gist is that the Commission will grant automakers a longer period of time to meet the now-not-as-clean target of 130g/km of carbon emissions along with reducing the amount that automakers would be fined for missing that target. To go along with this, credits would be earned for models which produce fewer than 70g/km. That makes some sense, as it may get automakers to push for that low figure. The problem is that up to five other vehicles could be offset by that one low emitter. That's pretty bad math. Expect these issues to be voted on in the near future.

[Source: Channel 4]