European Parliament Cleaning the Transport Sector

In March and April 2019 the European Parliament seized the legislative initiative to clean the transport sector. In a series of decisions, binding quotas concerning emissions in the transport sector have been resolved. While the parliament decided already in March that exhaust gas limits of passenger vehicles need to be cut by 37.5 % in 2030 compared to 2021 levels, the Parliament now
It is a long-standing ´problem child´ of the EU´s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: the transport sector. As part of the EU`s 2030 climate & energy framework at least a 40 % cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels is required. There are three main sectors that need to contribute to this aim: the energy sector, heating & cooling and transport. While efforts in the last decades focused very much on the energy sector and initiatives in the heating & cooling sector are beginning to kick in, the transport sector (one of the biggest emitters of CO2 in Europe) went almost scot-free until recently. This is about to change now.
cracked down on other road transport vehicles, namely buses and trucks, and ordered binding quotas on emission reductions to be reached by 2030. Germany and others are criticizing the speed of change as well as the fact that buses running on methane gas are no longer counted as ´emission free´.

The latest indication is the legislative resolution of the European Parliament of 18 April 2019 on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Directive 2009/33/EU on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles. This proposal features procurement quotas for climate-friendly vehicles in public transport, public postal services and garbage collection.

Concerning public transport, a rather strict procurement quota has been set. While almost all Member States are obliged to procure 65% of buses in 2030 with clean drive (Annex 1 Table 4), is there also an obligation to have at least half of these vehicles (32.5%) run by zero emission engines - namely electricity or hydrogen engines.

Although the directive has only been discussed in first reading and Member States still have 2 years to implement it, once it is resolved, criticism has been voiced from countries with big car manufacturing industries, above all Germany. The German MEP of the European`s Peoples Party Markus Ferber told a German newspaper that `the quotas will have much more negative than positive effects´. He criticizes that large and middle-sized cities in Germany invested heavily in cleaning their public transport infrastructure, by switching to buses running on methane gas instead of petrol. These buses, however, are not counted as `emission free´ according to the newly proposed directive.

Despite this criticism, procurement quotas for zero emission vehicles in the public fleed are not new around the globe. In the USA the Energy Policy Act of 1992 as well as other initiatives spearheaded the development of binding procurement quotas for alternative fuel vehicles (for details see Fleming & Fershee `The `Hydrogen Economy´ in the United States and the European Union´ in Zillmann/Godden/Paddock/Roggenkamp `Innovation in Energy Law and Technology (Oxford University Press, 2018)). It remains to be seen if the European legislator is following the example and will be strong enough to ward off the criticism.