European Parliament lawmakers on Wednesday voted to support an effective EU ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, rejecting attempts to weaken the proposal to speed Europe's shift to electric vehicles.
The EU assembly voted in Strasbourg, France to require automakers to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 100 percent by the middle of the next decade. The mandate would amount to a prohibition on the sale in the 27-nation bloc of new cars powered by gasoline or diesel.
EU lawmakers also endorsed a 55 percent reduction in CO2 from automobiles in 2030 compared with 2021. The move deepens an existing obligation on the car industry to lower CO2 discharges by 37.5 percent on average at the end of the decade compared to last year.
The measure passed by 339 votes to 249 with 24 abstentions at a session in Strasbourg – in practice limiting future sales to emissions-free all-electric models.
Cars currently account for 12 percent of all CO2 emissions in the 27-member EU bloc, while transportation overall accounts for around a quarter.
The conservative European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s biggest group of lawmakers, had sought to push a compromise that would have diluted the proposals and allowed sales of hybrid vehicles to continue.
Their amendment was narrowly defeated while an ambitious attempt by the Greens to bring the measure deadline forward to 2030 also failed.
Conservatives were also unable to push through amendments on having a car’s production-related carbon footprint taken into consideration as well – potentially allowing carmakers credits for synthetic, so-called e-fuels, made with captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen produced from renewable sources.
After the vote, EU environmental committee chair Pascal Canfin triumphantly tweeted: “100 percent zero emission cars in 2035! I strongly welcome the vote on CO2 standards in the @Europarl_EN. This position of the European Parliament is an important victory and consistent with our objective of climate neutrality.”
Source: www.france24.com
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