The European Union (EU) took a big step towards the end of polluting vehicles on Tuesday: MEPs approved the end of sales of new cars with combustion engines in 2035 while Brussels presented its objectives for buses and trucks.
“We have reached a historic agreement, which reconciles the automobile and the climate, two enemy brothers”, rejoiced the ecologist MEP Karima Delli, president of the Transport Committee in the European Parliament. MEPs adopted, with 340 votes for, 279 votes against and 21 abstentions, a new regulation providing for the reduction of CO2 emissions to zero2 new cars and vans in Europe from 2035. This amounts to a de facto halt in sales of new petrol and diesel cars and light commercial vehicles in the EU by that date, as well as hybrids (petrol -electricity), in favor of 100% electric vehicles.
Proposed by the European Commission in July 2021, the text was the subject of an agreement last October between the Member States and the negotiators of the European Parliament, after tough negotiations. It is this agreement that was approved by MEPs on Tuesday, and the Council (body representing the States) must still officially give the green light for the text to enter into force.
While the car, the first mode of transport for Europeans, represents a little less than 15% of CO2 continent, the new regulations should allow the EU to achieve its climate objectives: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 and carbon neutrality by 2050.
But the vote also made people cringe. The EPP (right), the main political formation in Parliament, defended a reduction in emissions from new cars by 2030 of 90% rather than 100%, fearing too great a destabilization of the automotive sector, with around 13 million jobs in Europe. The radical left is alarmed by a text making Europe “dependent on battery components from China and Africa”, in the words of the Czech communist Katerina Konecna.
“Terrible challenge” for heavy vehicles
Coincidentally, shortly after Parliament’s vote on cars and vans, the European Commission unveiled its proposals on Tuesday aimed at regulating heavy vehicles (trucks, buses, etc.), which generate 6% of greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse in the EU. For trucks sold from 2030, emissions should be reduced by at least 45% “on average” compared to 2019 levels, then cut by 65% from 2035, and by 90% from 2040 , according to this text which will be negotiated between States and MEPs. Exemptions are provided for certain vehicles (fire, police, army, ambulances, among others).
Brussels also wants all new buses put into service in European cities from 2030 to be “zero emissions”.
“To achieve our climate goals, all parts of the transport sector must actively contribute”, so that by 2050, “virtually all vehicles on our roads will be zero emissions”, underlined Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the Commission. “Our manufacturers are preparing for it,” he said. According to him, heavy goods vehicles, which currently run on diesel or gasoline, will be able to run on hydrogen, thanks to fuel cells or modified combustion engines, but also on electricity.
German automaker Daimler and rival Volvo are planning mass production of hydrogen fuel cells for trucks as early as 2025 and, long unimaginable, electric trucks are “starting to arrive,” Timmermans said. But he also recognized that it was a real “industrial revolution” for the sector, taking up the “tremendous challenge” represented by the production of “green” electricity or hydrogen to supply this fleet of heavy goods vehicles. clean.
The 2030 target “means more than 400,000 zero-emission trucks will be on the road, with 50,000 public truck-friendly charging points operational within seven years […] not to mention some 700 hydrogen charging stations,” estimates the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers. These infrastructure specific to trucks “being almost completely lacking today, the challenge to be met is enormous”, she underlines.
The environmental NGO Transport & Environment regrets that Brussels does not set a date to completely ban the sale of heat engine trucks, warning that many will still be driving in 2050 and deploring “an unreasonable concession made to manufacturers”.