European Parliament takes the first step toward stricter CO₂ limits

Photo of the European Parliament published under the GNU Documentation License

A battle has been fought in the European Parliament to establish CO₂ emission limits for new cars. The contenders were, on one side, the members of the Industry and Energy Committee; on the other side, the Environmental Affairs Committee. The first wanted relaxed emission limits, the second one, stricter limits. We have covered the long list of proposals (here's one, another one, and one more) that were coming up but this is what the Environmental Affairs Committee finally voted on:

• Average CO₂ emissions under 130 g/km in 2012.
• Target CO₂ emissions under 95 g/km in 2020, although this limit is to be reviewed in 2014.
• Fines for automakers: €95 per gram per car sold for each gram an automaker surpasses the limit. For instance, if an automaker has an average of 140 g/km and sells 500,000 cars per year, the fine will be €5,000,000.

Note that this doesn't mean that this will immediately become legislation . First, it's got to be passed by the European Parliament (although MPs listen to Committees and usually approve their proposals), then the 27 European Ministers of Environmental Affairs will have their say and, finally, the European Commission will vote.

[Source: Greenpeace via Econoticias]