Battle for internal combustion engine splits EU parliament
MEPs divided on when and how to ban the production of CO₂-emitting cars
Low ambition coalition
When the European parliament’s environment committee last month upheld the target proposed by the European Commission to fully ban the production of CO₂-emitting cars as of 2035, it followed a familiar pattern. (The European parliament usually upholds or even increases the commission’s level of ambition on climate-related policies.)
But that playbook is about to be thrown out the window in tomorrow’s plenary vote, amid a push from industry-proxy centre-right to far-right MEPS to water down that ban and create an unlimited exemption for 10 per cent of the new cars.
In addition, Italian lawmakers are seeking an exemption for small luxury car manufacturers including Ferrari, Bugatti and Lamborghini — in what is now being dubbed the “Ferrari amendment”.
French centrist MEP Pascal Canfin from the Renew group, who chairs the environment committee, says it would be “very strange and unprecedented” for the European parliament to enter negotiations with a lower level of ambition than even member states.
“The vote will be tight, but we’ll do everything we can to stop anti-climate agenda,” he told Europe Express.
Once hailed as a pro-EU, pro-climate majority, the parliament’s top four groups are no longer voting in lockstep, particularly since the largest one, the centre-right European People’s party has lost representation in governments in Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Rome.
Canfin has observed the EPP filing amendments seeking to reduce the ambition of CO₂ emissions in all modes of transport, concluding that “if you add everything up, in the end it’s clearly impossible to meet climate goals.”
He says that if the cars emission targets are watered down, this will “derail” upcoming standards for trucks and aviation and will eventually mean that Europe cannot meet its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.
The argument floated by the German centre-right (now in opposition), also at national level, where the government seeks a ban on internal combustion engines as of 2035, is that this technology shouldn’t be banned, as it continues to be used elsewhere in the world.
Canfin argues that the ban is not on one technology or the other, just on CO₂ emissions — so if internal combustion engines can be used with CO₂-neutral hydrogen, for instance, that could work too. But he does acknowledge that in terms of personal vehicles, batteries are much more advanced than hydrogen, so that electric cars are already shaping up as the prevailing technology. But hydrogen-fuelled trucks or even planes could contribute to the bloc’s green house gas reduction targets, he said.
In the end, insiders expect some sort of compromise where a small part of the new car fleet produced after 2035 is allowed to emit CO₂, but with an end-date in sight.