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European strategy for low-emission mobility

2016/2327(INI)

PURPOSE: to present a European strategy for low-emission mobility.

BACKGROUND: transport represents almost a quarter of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions and is the main cause of air pollution in cities. Europe's answer to these challenges is an irreversible shift to low-emission mobility in terms of carbon and air pollutants.

The shift towards low-emission mobility has already started globally and its pace is accelerating. This shift, which has already started building on existing EU policies, should be accelerated through this strategy for low-emission mobility.

CONTENT: the Commission’s strategy aims to reduce emissions from the transport sector while meeting the EU's commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Regions and cities too will be major actors in delivering low-emission mobility solutions. Urban transport is responsible for 23% of EU's greenhouse gas emissions. Behavioural choices made by mobility users will determine how successful we will be.

The strategy’s objective is three-fold:

1) Improving the efficiency of the transport system: the Commission considered that in order to facilitate the transition to low-emission mobility and provide certainty for investors, the EU regulatory framework needs to change:

  • by making the best use of digital technologies: to this end, the Commission is working on a framework for the swift and coordinated deployment of such systems across the EU;
  • by guaranteeing efficient pricing: across the EU, charging should move towards distance-based road charging systems based on actual kilometres driven, to reflect better the polluter-pays and user-pays principles. To that end, the Commission is developing standards for inter-operable electronic tolling systems in the EU, to facilitate access to markets for new tolling service providers and to reduce overall system costs. Moreover, the Commission will revise the Directive on the charging for lorries to enable charging also on the basis of carbon dioxide differentiation, and extend some of its principles to buses and coaches as well as passenger cars and vans;
  • by promoting multi-modality by incentivising a shift towards lower emission transport modes such as inland waterways, short-sea shipping and rail and providing measures to develop domestic bus and coach services.

2) Scaling up the use of low-emission alternative energy for transport: transport in the EU still depends on oil for about 94% of its energy needs:

  • as part of the revision of the current legislation related to fuels and renewable energy, the Commission is examining how to provide a strong incentive to innovate in energies needed for the long-term decarbonisation. This could be done for example as an obligation for fuel suppliers to provide a certain share of renewable alternative energy, i.a. advanced biofuels and synthetic fuels;
  • the EU supports the deployment of infrastructure for alternative fuels financially and through its stakeholder platforms. Based on the alternative fuels infrastructure Directive, by November 2016, Member States will design policy frameworks for rolling-out publicly available electric recharging points and natural gas filling stations, and optionally hydrogen filling stations. In order to achieve mass acceptance and deployment of electric vehicles, charging and maintenance infrastructure needs to become widely available throughout Europe;
  • further effort should be made to foster the creation of an EU-wide electro-mobility services market, such as the cross-border interoperability of payments and the provision of real-time information on charging points. A common plug standard already exists for cars and standards for induction charging, batteries, and charging plugs for electric buses and motorbikes are next.

3) Moving forward towards zero-emission vehicles: the transformational change towards low- and zero-emission vehicles will need to be supported by a wide range of measures at all levels of policy-making to engage both manufacturers and users:

  • the Commission has made fundamental changes to how vehicle emissions are measured and verified. New 'real driving' emissions tests will now be implemented swiftly so that limit values for air pollutant emissions have a stronger impact on the ground and consumers can trust them again. A new global test procedure, the World Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, will be implemented to deliver more realistic and accurate carbon dioxide and fuel consumption values;
  • it is necessary to further reduce emissions from conventional combustion engines after 2020. Zero- and low-emission vehicles will need to be deployed and gain significant market share by 2030. The Commission is working on post-2020 carbon dioxide standards for cars and vans;
  • in order to encourage customer uptake, the Commission aims to improve information through car labelling and on support through public procurement rules. Tax instruments are very effective to incentivise consumer behaviour;
  • the EU will also need to introduce measures to actively curb carbon dioxide emissions from lorries, buses and coaches. Other parts of the world, such as the United States, China, Japan and Canada, have already introduced standards, and some European manufacturers participate in these schemes.

Global action: the EU is fully committed to reaching agreement on a Global Market-Based Mechanism to address international aviation emissions and achieve carbon neutral growth from 2020. It is also committed to securing a robust and mandatory global agreement for the collection and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) by the end of 2016.