EU  emission  legislation  discourages  light  weight  innovation    

 Foto:  1  -­‐  Outside  the  EU  Parliament,  cars  are  waiting  in  line.  According  to  NGO's  future  cars  would  be  lighter  and  less  polluting,  if  the  legislation  on  co2  reduction  was  changed  -­‐  Foto:  Michael  Hjøllund  

Legislation  on  co2  emission  discourages  manufactures  to  think  in  lightweight  solutions.  “Short  sighted  and  unfair,”  says  environment  NGOs  and  the  aluminium  industry.      By  Michael  Hjollund  &  Yasmine  Saker    NGOs  and  the  aluminium  industry  criticize  the  EU  Commission  for  proposing  to  maintain  the  current  rules  on  how  to  calculate  co2  targets  for  new  cars.  Current  legislation  uses  the  car’s  weight  as  the  so-­‐called  utility  parameter  that  calculates  the  specific  target  for  a  given  manufacture.  Therefore,  heavy  cars  are  allowed  to  emit  an  additional  amount  of  co2,  and  cars  lighter  than  the  average  have  to  fulfil  stricter  targets.      Richard  Smokers,  an  expert  from  the  Netherlands  Organisation  for  Applied  Scientific  Research  (TNO)  and  the  main  author  of  a  review  of  the  current  legislation,  requested  by  the  Commission  themselves,  concludes  that  the  current  weight  based  system  has  some  drawbacks.    “Mass  as  utility  parameter  has  the  disadvantage  that  it  does  not  fully  reward  manufactures  applying  weight  reduction.  If  a  manufacture  applies  weight  reduction  he  has  to  meet  a  stricter  target,”  Smokers  explains.      

According  to  Smokers,  this  leaves  manufactures  in  a  “first-­‐movers  dilemma”;  the  first  manufacture  to  invest  heavily  in  light  weighting  to  cut  co2  emissions  will  have  to  meet  stricter  targets,  than  manufactures  who  cut  co2  by  investing  in  fuel-­‐efficient  engines,  for  example.  This  poses  a  problem,  as  light  weighting  will  have  to  play  a  bigger  role  in  the  future  effort  to  reduce  co2  emission      According  to  Peter  Mock,  the  Europe  lead  of  the  International  Council  of  Clean  Transportation,  an  independent  non-­‐profit  organization  promoting  energy  efficiency  in  the  transport  sector,  disfavouring  light  weighting  will  cause  extra  expenses  in  the  future.      “Having  a  disincentive  for  weight  reduction  will  lead  to  a  situation  where  society  will  have  to  pay  more  than  is  actually  necessary,  because  other  more  expensive  technical  solutions  will  be  applied  instead  of  weight  reduction,”  Mock  says.      The  alternative  utility  parameter,  which  the  TNO  review  suggests,  is  based  on  the  car’s  footprint,  the  area  between  the  four  wheels  of  the  car.  A  footprint-­‐based  system  would  mean  that  manufactures  get  full  credit  regarding  cutting  co2  when  using  light  weighting.  If  they  decrease  the  weight  of  their  cars,  they  no  longer  have  to  meet  a  higher  co2  target.      According  to  Cecile  Toubeau,  policy  officer  in  the  environmental  NGO  Transport  &  Environment,  a  footprint-­‐based  system  should  be  implemented  already  moving  from  2015  to  2020  alongside  with  the  mass  based  system  being  phased  out.  This  would  benefit  green  transport.      “Moving  towards  footprint  enables  more  technologies  and  new  opportunities  to  open  up  in  the  future,”  she  says.    Changes  will  harm  the  industry  Despite  the  review’s  conclusion,  and  critique  from  the  NGOs,  the  Commission  refuses  to  change  the  system.  Their  main  concern  right  now  is  to  ensure  stability  for  the  industry.      “It  was  considered  that  providing  certainty  for  manufacturers  ruled  out  a  change  of  the  basis  for  the  regulation  for  2020,”  the  Commission  states  on  their  website.      For  the  manufactures  themself,  the  suggestion  of  changing  the  utility  parameter  is  met  by  resistance.  Car  producers  point  out  that  production  plans  for  new  cars  have  already  been  made  for  2020,  and  changing  the  regulation  now  will  be  a  costly  affair  for  the  industry.      “You  don’t  just  change  one  parameter.  In  reality  it  means  manufactures  are  treated  under  totally  different  conditions.  They  have  invested  billions  into  new  engines,  powertrains  and  so  on  and  suddenly  that  is  wasted,”  says  Petr  Dolejsi,  Director  of  Mobility  and  Sustainable  Transport  of  the  European  Automobile  Manufacturers’  Association  (ACEA).    Dolejsi  sees  that  even  though  the  EU  talks  about  long-­‐term  goals,  declining  sales  and  struggling  car  industry,  is  a  pressing  issue    

“Visions  are  nice,  but  you  have  to  transfer  that  into  reality.  You  have  to  cope  with  current  problems  and  the  current  situation  on  the  market.”    Unfair  competition  One  of  the  industries  that  are  pushing  for  a  change  from  a  mass  based  parameter  to  footprint,  is  the  aluminium  industry.  They  are  offering  the  car  industry  lightweight  materials  as  a  way  to  make  the  cars  lighter,  and  thereby  cut  their  fuel  consumption  and  co2  emission.      Patrik  Ragnarsson,  automotive  and  transport  technological  manager  at  the  European  Aluminium  Association  believes  that  the  Commission  is  holding  back  investments  in  light  weighting,  by  disfavouring  the  technology  in  their  choice  of  utility  parameter.    “Regulations  driving  technologies  should  be  neutral,  otherwise  someone  who  does  not  have  full  knowledge  on  the  area  are  deciding  on  what  technologies  that  are  to  used.  The  EU  should  not  pick  winners  and  losers,”  he  says.        According  to  the  manufactures  themselves,  the  current  legislation  is  not  the  reason  why  light  weighting  is  a  less  popular  solution  among  car  producers.      “You  have  plenty  of  solutions  that  can  reduce  co2  that  can  be  done  in  a  much  more  affordable  way,”  says  Petr  Dolejsi  from  the  ACEA.      Patrik  Ragnarsson  disagrees.    “If  I  was  the  car  company  choosing  between  doing  engine  efficiency  improvements  or  light  weighting  it  is  quite  obvious  what  solution  I  would  chose  under  these  circumstances,”  he  says.    Decreasing  opposition  from  the  parliament  In  the  European  parliament,  the  discussion  of  utility  parameter  was  already  undertaken  in  2009.  At  the  time,  the  Green  Group  proposed  amendments  that  would  force  the  utility  parameter  to  be  changed  as  soon  as  the  needed  data  for  using  footprint  as  parameter  was  available.  Back  then,  the  group  of  the  Progressive  Alliance  of  Socialist  and  Democrats  supported  the  proposal.      Today  however,  the  situation  seems  to  have  changed.  Dan  Jørgensen,  member  of  the  Green  Group,  and  vice  chair  in  the  Committee  on  the  Environment,  Public  Health  and  Food  Safety,  states  that  the  chance  might  have  passed  for  change  in  this  regulation.      

Foto:  2  The  aluminium  industry  accuse  the  EU  to  pick  winners  such  as  hybrid  engines,  and  disfavouring  light  weighting,  when  it  comes  to  cutting  co2  in  the  car  industry  -­‐  Foto:  Yasmine  Saker  

“Even  though  you  theoretically  could  argue  that  it  would  be  better  for  the  environment  to  change  the  parameter,  I  think  we  have  learned  a  few  lessons  from  for  instance  the  carbon  emission  trading  system,  where  we  made  so  many  changes  in  the  legislation  that  we  created  a  monster”    Rebecca  Harms,  leader  of  The  Greens  in  the  European  Parliament  disagrees.  To  her,  the  legislation  has  proved  not  to  be  sufficient.      “It’s  now  very  obvious  that  there  are  a  lot  of  loopholes  in  the  legislation,  loopholes  that  undermine  the  environmental  goal.  In  this  respect  there  is  room  for  improvements,”  she  states.