Comments (24)Posted on 02/07/2007 9:42:44 AM PST by Stoat
Car manufacturers said the carbon dioxide limits were too stringent
Drivers face paying thousands of pounds extra for new cars under EU proposals aimed at cutting pollution.
After weeks of wrangling, bureaucrats in Brussels will today announce limits on the amount of carbon dioxide new vehicles can emit.
An EU-commissioned report claims the proposals could add an average of £2,500 to the price of a car. But motor manufacturers claim the cost could be as high as £3,300.
As green groups accused the EU of 'watering down' its original proposals, manufacturers across Europe said the limits were too stringent and would lead to job losses if companies have to absorb fines for breaching the regulations.
EU environmental chiefs originally demanded that the average new car must be engineered to emit no more than 120g of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
Today they are expected to confirm that, while their 'overall' target remains 120g per km by 2012, manufacturers will be set a target of 130g per kilometre.
Brussels commissioners, who faced strong opposition from the car industry over their plans to place the full burden onto the car makers, have drawn up plans to target fuel standards and driver behaviour as additional ways of cutting emissions.
One EU source said yesterday: 'I would expect to see the target of 120g per km agreed, of which the car manufacturers will contribute 130g per km.'
The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association said the 130g figure was still too high and would 'lead toward loss of jobs and manufacturing in Europe'. Manufacturers have agreed a voluntary target for next year of 140g per km but are unlikely to meet it.
In Britain, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said the average carbon dioxide emissions for new cars sold in the UK last year was 167.2g per kilometre. Members say the only way to meet the EU target is through rapid and costly expansion of hybrid cars such as the petrol-electric Toyota Prius and Lexus range.
Such hybrids currently account for fewer than 9,000 of the 2.3million cars sold each year and are considered a 'stop-gap measure'.
A society spokesman said it was 'fantasy' to try to force consumers to buy low-emission cars they didn't want. 'We have a long list of low-emission cars which have bombed,' he said.
'To comply with a 120g per km target, three quarters of all new cars in Britain would have to be hybrid. The effect could be to drive sports car and 4x4 makers out of business within a decade, through fines and "unobtainable" improvements in technology.'
Friends of the Earth transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said last night: 'Manufacturers are failing to take climate change seriously. The commission is going to water down its long agreed target, which is deeply disappointing.'
'To comply with a 120g per km target, three quarters of all new cars in Britain would have to be hybrid. The effect could be to drive sports car and 4x4 makers out of business within a decade, through fines and "unobtainable" improvements in technology.'
His public statement misses the point, however, in that the true goal of the 'green' groups is not to improve the environment but to destroy Capitalism, by any means necessary.
A magnificent ray of sunshine in all of this idiocy, however, can be seen in the comments to this article at the Daily Mail site (link up near top of page). As of the time of this posting, the VAST majority of the comments are highly critical of 'global warming' alarmism, EU encroachment into peoples' lives, and are soberly questioning the benefits these efforts. Many are of the rational, thoughtful quality that one might expect to find here at Free Republic, and if these comments represent a good cross-section of opinion in Great Britain then they give me great hope.
$1.9611/pound X 3,300 pounds = $6,471.63 X 19.6pc VAT = $7,740.07 for EU's green drive.
Stopgap measures and ultimately ineffective. The sun will continue to warm long after 'Greenies' have evolved back into slimy puddles.
Was this statement quoted erroneously? Should the sentence read "...too low?"
Gee, increasing the cost of a car by nearly EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS (on average...some cars may be far more) won't bother anyone or affect the economy in any way!
('sarcasm' tag, which hopefully is unnecessary)
I'm guessing that smart investors aren't making plans to make huge stock purchases in European auto companies at the moment.
Agreed. I listened to a radio program last night featuring a scientist who was disputing the 'global warming' alarmism, and he said that the sunspot activity that is a major player in the current warming cycle will end around 2030 after a global average change of perhaps two degrees, and will then move the earth into another cooling cycle.
The enviro-whackos will need to change their talking points / hysterics yet again around that time.
Friends of the Earth transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said last night: 'Manufacturers are failing to take climate change seriously. The commission is going to water down its long agreed target, which is deeply disappointing.'
Two things jump out at me every time I read one of these discussions.
Are unelected activists now running the economy and health of these countries?
Are "Environmental Chiefs" elected?
What legal and actual authority does a 'campaigner' for Friends of the Earth have?
What do the citizens and voters of these countries actually think?
Why don't they just vote out legislators who run the jobs they were elected for by the dictates of unelected, and often uninformed activists?
After reading this,the smart investment move is to buy the stock of shoe manufacturers.
What I find amazing about all of the talk about reducing CO2 emissions from cars is that so many people lack basic knowledge about the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels.
CO2 is not a byproduct or a "pollutant". It is a primary and irreducible product of the combustion of ANY hydrocarbon fuel.
You simply cannot lower the CO2 output and get the same energy output. The amount of energy released and CO2 produced are inextricably linked.
Any chemists or performance engineers out there that want to weigh in and tell me what I am missing?
VAST majority of the comments are highly critical of 'global warming' alarmism, EU encroachment into peoples' lives, and are soberly questioning the benefits these efforts.
Regrettably, VAST criticism means nothing in a world where vocal minority and special interest groups have the political clout to implement social agendas.
Further, even when the results of ill-conceived 'feel good' programs result in un-intended consequences which undermine the fabric of society, the facts of failure mean nothing. Witness the rise in crime when the UK outlawed firearms.
Liberal activists are willing to settle for incrementally small victorys. In so doing they are insidiously successful. "Second hand smoke" has also been found to be junk science, yet Belmont, CA, is trying to outlaw smoking in ones' own apartment. Belmont may not get a full ban this year - but maybe next year.
Auto standards, likewise, will creep farther. Motorcycles will soon be required to pass tested emission standards and even garden equipment is coming under scruitany. Two-stroke engines are virtually banned on Lake Tahoe.
Too many people, as well, want to "Euro-ize" the United States as part of the Globalization movement. CO2 standards is but one step that, if successful, will be pointed out making us (the U.S.) the world 'bad guy' once again.
And while the peons take the public transit or walk, the politicos, entertainment stars and Green leaders will still be riding in limos and private jets.
...and limit the mobility, and options thereof, of "the People". All for our own good, of course.
How about we put a price tag of £3,300 on each greenie that walks the earth?
Was this statement quoted erroneously? Should the sentence read "...too low?"
Good catch!
<<< handing you a stylish and fashionable "careful, thoughtful reader" award, suitable for framing :-)
Actually, nothing.
That's why the debate continues to be driven by discussing, ad nauseam, global warming.
The real debate should be about the anthropogenic contribution:
Comparing greenhouse gases by strict concentration only, the total human component is somewhere between 0.1% and 0.2%, depending on whose numbers you use. Adjusted for GWP, the total human contribution to Earth's overall greenhouse effect is about 0.28%
Awwwwww.
Shucks!
That is exactly why they are against CO2. Other forms of emissions kept getting cleaned up, and since the real goal is to ban the Industrial Revolution, they have to pick up on something that is fundamentally impossible to fix.
Prolly someone from Pasco.
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