Debate: Strengthening the COemission performance targets for new heavy-duty vehicles
Date: TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2023
Speaker: Bas Eickhout
Country: France
Language: EN

First of all, on CO2 standards for trucks and buses, I think it is very important to realise that trucks are responsible for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions from road transport, so this shows how big the impact of our trucks are. This is, of course, a very crucial sector that we need to decarbonise towards 2050 in order to achieve our climate neutrality as the European Union. For that, we have put CO2 standards on the table before and we do see improvements, but we need to accelerate. We need to accelerate to make sure that we can be reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.  To be very honest, I was critical about the Commission’s proposal and, to be very honest, I am still doubtful that with these numbers we will get to climate neutrality by 2050 in the trucks, which is one of the still easier sectors to abate than when we are talking about shipping aviation etc.  But we have accepted these targets and we will push them forward in order to make sure that this decarbonisation will happen, and probably we could see some acceleration, even, of decarbonisation going beyond the targets that we have been putting on the table. So what is now on the table is a reduction of 45% by 2030, 70% by 2035 and 90% by 2040 – that is also very important, we are talking about 90% by 2040. Because in a lot of your contributions, we will probably start talking about carbon neutral fuels again, e-fuels etc. – they can all be part of the mix. When we were having a discussion about 100% reduction target for the cars, of course, there was a debate on it, but in this case we have a 90% reduction target. This allows for manufacturers to choose different technologies to deliver, and even if they cannot be 100% zero, they can still comply because the target is 90% by 2040. So that is very important to realise that, to be very honest, the e-fuel debate should not take place in this file.  I know some are so attached to it that they want to even have that debate in this file, and I always wonder that those people talking about technology neutrality can only talk about e-fuels, so much for their technology neutrality.  What we have done further in our report is expanded the scope also to vocational vehicles, but with an exception for fire trucks and other vehicles that are used for civil protection. So we mainly talking about garbage trucks, which, of course, can certainly decarbonise. We also have a target of zero emissions for city buses for 2030 there, with a very clear exemption until 2035 for those local governments who already invested in alternatives, because we do appreciate those activities and, of course, we do not want to cut that off by 2030.  So I think all in all, a very balanced report with ambition that is very close to the Commission, with consideration of an expanding of the scope, also with good definitions of carbon neutrality and carbon neutral fuels. And for those who are saying that we still need something on the carbon correction factor because of carbon neutral fuels, read the letters being sent to us by Daimler, MAN, Volvo, Scania, who are all saying: do not do this, you are putting the burden on us, you are defacto slowing down the decarbonisation of this sector. And that is what you are trying to do. If you want to discuss e-fuels, please do so, but not on this file. Do not pollute that debate and let us make sure that we have a very clear report as a Parliament.