Debate: Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States  - Land use, land use change and forestry  - COemission standards for cars and vans
Date: TUESDAY, 7 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Frans Timmermans
Language: EN

This includes stronger CO2 standards for cars; to reach climate neutrality by 2050, nearly all cars on Europe’s roads need to be zero-emission by then. If you look at the average lifetime of cars, 2035 is a good date for when all new car sales must be zero-emission. It is consistent, especially if this Parliament wants to dress down emissions trading for fuels and road transport, it must deliver car standards that bring affordable zero-emission mobility to citizens.  Our proposal is technology-neutral and setting targets for all. What it doesn’t do is moving goalposts in mid-race so that winning technologies are handicapped and change doesn’t happen. Of course, many get worked up over this, so I just want to specifically address those issues that have been brought up also this morning, where there are doubts.  Those who expressed doubts always use the argument of realism, pragmatism to get us to change what we have proposed. So let me also look at this from an angle of realism and pragmatism. Most carmakers have already embraced 2035. Almost all of them. Many want to go further and only sell electric cars by 2030 or even 2028. Our proposal would cement this trend for all carmakers with extra ambition in preceding years. We must give industry a clear signal and allow them to plan investments going forward. That’s what we are asking. Be consistent, be clear, and stick to the plan. And, by the way, I’m deeply convinced that if we don’t lead on this, the Chinese and the Americans will, and they’re moving extremely fast in this area. No place on earth are more electric cars sold than in China these days. So, you know, we need to keep up.  We have so much to offer. Our car industry is the best in the world by a large margin, but it needs to be zero-emissions. Our consumers want this as well. Whatever study you look at and whether you include car production or not, electric cars are the affordable and sustainable solution. Consumer organisations want these cars. Our impact analysis backs them up. Electric cars are now already cheaper to run because of the fuel savings, especially for low-income households. With revised CO2 performance standards, they will also become cheaper to buy. So in that sense, getting to cheaper electric cars as soon as possible is the right thing to do for people who can’t afford very expensive mobility.  Of course, zero emission mobility should be a comfortable choice. That’s why we’ve made ambitious proposals to give governments matching responsibility to deliver the charging infrastructure that carmakers and drivers need. Every carmaker I speak to says this ‘we can do this, if you deliver the charging infrastructure; some will be delivered commercially without problems, but in certain areas you will have to pitch in’. And I think that’s just fair and we need to do that.  Still, we see voices in Parliament that don’t share our sense of urgency. They push, for example, for e-fuels in combustion engines. I want to say a few words about that. These fuels will never, ever be available in sufficient quantities. They will be more expensive at the petrol pump, far more expensive than driving an electric car. They will take six times the energy to produce compared to the battery in a car. Even then, engines would still pollute the air that our citizens breathe.  I’m deeply aware of the impact on jobs in components and fuels for combustion engines, but the answer isn’t to push solutions that are inconsistent with industry plans, inconsistent with consumers choices, inconsistent with REPowerEU goals to make the best use of energy and with the simple desire of citizens to breathe clean air.  The answer is to make the transition responsibly also for workers in the supply chain. Jobs will arise in electrification, software, chargers, batteries and even heat pumps with technology now used for car engines, but this won’t allow workers to transition magically. It is not something that just happens. That’s why we need a firm transition plan, a helping hand and funding so that whosever job is on the line can find a job elsewhere. We need everyone in Europe to fill the jobs that will be coming, but they then also have to have the qualifications to be able to do the jobs.  Jan Huitema’s report makes proposals for this. Next year, the Commission would need to follow up. We could even offer pilots to test strong solutions in real time, especially in those countries where the car industry is extra challenged to make the transition because the consumers in those countries have to catch up and also the infrastructure in those countries has to catch up. Why not make that pilot projects and show that can also happen in countries that perhaps today many people don’t believe it can – because it can.  Turning briefly to LULUCF and effort-sharing, I am pleased that this Parliament is confirming the key architecture of our proposals. That’s a good basis for trilogues. I want to say one thing on LULUCF. This Parliament rightly puts more emphasis on carbon farming and the carbon removals that this generates, for example, by improving soil and re-wetting lands. The report adds new targets for wetlands and grasslands as carbon sinks. That’s a massive opportunity for farmers to be part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity crises. Farmers suffer more than anybody else from these crises. By making farming sustainable, including via carbon farming, we’re not destroying farming, we’re saving farming. We need to work on this together.  And I forgot, I think, this morning at the end of my contribution to answer a question by Mr Liese, and I want to do it now. We haven’t supported nuclear from innovation modernisation funds, and I can’t see how we could change this because of the cost involved and the state involvement in nuclear. Our priorities are fully on future renewable solutions such as green, steel and hydrogen, and the limited means we have in the innovation and modernisation funds should be directed there and nowhere else.