Proposal for a Regulation Of The European Parliament And Of The Council amending Regulation (EU) No 510/2011 to define the modalities for reaching the 2020 target to reduce CO2 emissions from new light commercial vehicles

The EU has a stated objective of limiting global climate change to a temperature increase of 2ºC above pre-industrial levels. To achieve this, global emissions need to peak by 2020 and be reduced by at least 50% globally by 2050 compared to 1990. The European Council reconfirmed the EU target of an 80-95% reduction by 2050 compared to 1990 in the context of the necessary reductions by developed countries as a group. Current policies would only lead to about a 40% GHG (‘GHG’) emission reduction by 2050.

The Commission 'Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050' Sets out how to meet the 2050 target of reducing domestic emissions by 80% in the most cost- effective way. The Roadmap shows that every sector of the economy must contribute and, depending on the scenario, compared to 1990 transport emissions need to be between +20 and -9% by 2030 and decrease by 54% to 67% by 2050.

While emissions from other sectors are generally falling road transport is one of the few sectors where emissions have risen rapidly: between 1990 and 2008 emissions from road transport increased by 26%. In 2008 around 70% of transport CO2 emissions came from road transport. As a result, it is the second biggest source of GHG emissions in the EU, and contributes about one-fifth of the EU's total emissions of CO2.

In March 2011 the Commission adopted the 'Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system'. It sets out a transport strategy within a frame of achieving a 60% reduction in transport GHG emissions by 2050.

European Commission: SWD(2012)213: Impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2012:0213:FIN:EN:PDF

European Commission: SWD(2012)214: Summary of the impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2012:0214:FIN:EN:PDF

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)394: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:394:FIN

ESO: Background information: Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 to define the modalities for reaching the 2020 target to reduce CO2 emissions from new passenger cars http://www.europeansources.info/record/proposal-for-a-regulation-of-the-european-parliament-and-of-the-council-amending-regulation-ec-no-443-2009-to-define-the-modalities-for-reaching-the-2020-target-to-reduce-co2-emissions-from-new-pass/

---