EU’s exhausting fight against pollution

Date: 21/09/00

By Gareth Harding

IF THE EU misses the climate change targets it signed up to in Kyoto, as most experts expect it to, it will not be because of belching fumes from smokestacks or power plants but due to rising greenhouse gas emissions from cars, lorries and planes.

While emissions from industry have fallen in recent years, the transport sector's contribution to global warming has grown almost exponentially. In 1990, the sector accounted for just over 20% of the EU's carbon dioxide emissions. But a recent report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) predicted that this is likely to double over the next decade unless radical action is taken.

This increase is largely the result of the massive shift from rail to road transport. Over the past 30 years, the total length of the Union's motorways has increased by 195%, partly as a result of generous grants from Brussels.

But the EU's zest for road-building in poorer areas cannot be blamed for the disturbing rise in carbon-dioxide emissions. In 1998, the European Commission signed a ground-breaking deal with car-makers to cut emissions from new vehicles by a quarter over the next eight years. There has also been a dramatic reduction in pollutants from individual vehicles as a result of some of the strictest exhaust emission laws in the world.

Instead, responsibility for rising greenhouse gas emissions from the sector lies squarely with governments for failing to take the tough decisions needed to change travel habits. The French government's decision to give in to fishermen and lorry drivers protesting against rising petrol prices is an example of the gap between authorities' rhetoric about combating climate change and their willingness to take the measures needed to cut emissions.

Frazer Goodwin, of the Brussels-based European Federation for Transport and the Environment, says governments "have to do unpopular things" to prevent global warming wreaking havoc on the environment, even if this means controlling individuals' freedom to move where and when they want. One such measure would be to make transport users pay the full price of the environmental damage they cause. A White Paper on 'fair and efficient pricing' was drawn up by former Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, but legislative proposals have yet to see the light of day.

Goodwin says the tunes coming out of the Commission on transport and environment issues have "changed dramatically" under current Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. "A lot of the more progressive proposals have staggered to a halt with the new Commissioner," he says, referring to the debate on green taxes.

Green groups would like to see the Commission slap a 'kilometre charge' on truckers and promote road tolls and electronic pricing systems. But most governments remain very reluctant to give the EU greater powers to target car and lorry drivers.

Proposals to introduce an environmental charge on flying are also likely to be fiercely resisted by governments which are always keen to extol the virtues of cheaper flights.

Commission officials say measures to tackle traffic congestion will form a key plank of the Union's sixth environmental blueprint, due to be unveiled later this year. But without a change to the EU treaty, it is doubtful that the Union executive will have the tools needed to meet its goals. Member states still have a veto on green taxes and despite the best efforts of the Commission, MEPs and a handful of governments to switch to majority voting in this field, they are likely to retain that right for some years to come.

The only good news in the gloomy debate about transport and environment is that some car manufacturers appear to be taking global warming more seriously than many policy- makers. In recent years, they have signed up to dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, have been behind calls for lower sulphur dioxide in petrol and have invested heavily in low emission electric, hydrogen and fuel-cell cars which will soon be on the market.

Article forms part of a survey on transport. If the EU misses the climate change targets it signed up to in Kyoto, as most experts expect it to, it will not be because of belching fumes from smokestacks or power plants but due to rising greehouse gas emissions from cars, lorries and planes.