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Who hasn’t started to feel the debate on CO2 is in danger of wearing itself out? Less than 12 months ago, advocating biofuels put you firmly on the side of the angels, today it’s the opposite. Such dramatic reversals are unhelpful, casting doubt on sugar cane ethanol and even second generation biofuels. And they detract attention from the key issues: energy, emissions and economic growth.
In Copenhagen next year, the world’s leaders are due to gather and make decisions on a framework for global emissions trading. There has to be a break in the current deadlock, but according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s executive director, Achim Steiner, progress through the formal negotiation process is behind schedule. In the meantime CO2 emissions are growing at an unprecedented pace.
Steiner was speaking at an environmental forum organised jointly by Daimler and UNEP. Speakers from all sides of the issue – industry, science, environmentalists and government – gave a series of informed and often impassioned presentations on the issue of climate change and what needs to be done.
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche opened by stating that climate change is manmade and that the industry must do more to address CO2 emissions. It might be stating the obvious, but it was the first time I’d heard the head of a car company say it.
Several speakers quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. Zetsche draws inspiration instead from the fact that with no realistic chance of oil ever becoming cheap again, we are entering a pioneering era of engineering, not seen since Gottlieb Daimler’s days.
“Our engineers’ innovation will make the change and we hope to see the benefits in our own lifetime,” said Zetsche. |
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“This
isn’t about being phoney corporate do-gooders, we want to be seen for what we are – a responsible partner for the community.”
Nonetheless, Daimler faced frank criticism for its recent “Sex and the City” advertisements that portray SUVs as glamorous urban runarounds. Others were impatient with an industry they believed to be stalling technical progress and prolonging negotiations over CO2 limits unnecessarily.
“It would be reckless to give a date when 50 per cent of Daimler’s vehicle sales will be emissions-free,” said Zetsche. “The cars will be ready in the coming decade, but how many we sell depends on a lot of other factors. We’re going to need new technology, infrastructure and a regulatory framework to coordinate it all. We need commitment and open minds.”
But legislative deadlines are what will drive the industry in the future. When the industry missed the 2008 target of 140g/km it destroyed a lot of confidence in the industry’s ability to self-regulate. And there is a lot of impatience with its subsequent negotiations over CO2 targets and phase-in periods.
ACEA secretary general Ivan Hodac denied that the European car industry was on the defensive and asked critics to look at the level of innovation on display at motor shows. The critics just argued back that results, not concept cars, are what count.
But Hodac made a valid point about the time it takes to introduce new powertrains and vehicle concepts in Europe – without clear tax incentives, the market is a lot more conservative than the idealists would have us believe. In Japan and the US fuel economy targets are given much longer lead times, a little more flexibility and OEMs get credit for fitting things like low rolling resistance tyres.
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Masanobu Wada of the Japan Automobile Importers Association said: “Japan set its 2015 target of 138g/km in 2007. In the year that the target is set, that year’s most fuel efficient vehicle is taken as the basis for the target, excluding hybrids and manual transmissions. There are relatively loose penalties of around €5,000, but severe social sanctions – companies that fail are named and shamed.”
That sounds relatively lenient, but such a simple, progressive target, updated every few years makes it harder to justify non-compliance. |
Failing publicly is perhaps also more damaging to brands in Japan than in Europe too.
Carole Browner, former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reckons that despite the US setting average fuel economy targets only recently, further greenhouse gas legislation is likely in the next two years.
“The Senate is keen on a cap and trade approach and several committees in the House of Representatives are keen to engage on the issue,” she says. “Whoever the next president is, they’re likely to reverse Bush’s denial of California’s right to set its own tailpipe CO2 emissions targets.”
Browner is confident that tougher EPA regulations will get results. “Industry consistently comes up with much cheaper solutions than expected, much faster than expected,” she says. “Once government is clear, we’ll see answers that we can’t even imagine today.”
It’s easy to forget that this isn’t just a political question. |
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Speakers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other high-level think tanks emphasised the gravity of the issue – the “hockey stick” curves that signify massive increases in man-made CO2 emissions in recent decades and the increases in temperatures that track them several decades later.
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The intractable problem is that these are the by-product of economic growth. Dr Ottmar Edenhofer, an economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said: “Normally a one per cent increase in capital wealth means a one per cent increase in CO2 emissions. It’s very linear, but it should be possible to decouple economic growth from emissions rises.”
More wind, solar and nuclear energy will help. Emissions trading will too. There is a general idea among policy makers that an average of 2 tonnes per person per year would be sustainable, with Africa able to sell its rights for around €25 a tonne and Brazil receiving compensation for not cutting down the rainforests. |
It will be a key point at Copenhagen next year, but it will not be easy to achieve for several reasons. The international average CO2 production is 4.5 tonnes per capita a year; in Germany the average is 9 tonnes.
This and the fact that the EU’s imports of oil now exceeds €1billion a day means that European transport policy will take a drastic new direction in the next few years. MEP Ulrich Stockmann is a member of the European Parliament’s transport committee: “Road transport is the second largest greenhouse gas contributor in the EU. It’s one of the few sectors that consistently increase, slowing down progress on the targets set at Kyoto,” he says. |
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Wolfgang Tiefensee, the German minister for transport, spoke of the need for a European masterplan for good logistics and transport. “We must eliminate transport that’s not absolutely needed. Transport carriers have to be better linked. Each container should be assigned optimised routes, mixing road, rail and increasing amounts of short sea shipping.”
The fact that new cars account for just a couple of per cent won’t wash either. “It’s no good if airlines say we’re only two per cent, truck firms say we’re only 1.5 per cent and so on. You soon get to 100 per cent and nothing’s been done,” says Achim Steiner of UNEP. |
The idea of internalising external costs is a key concept for policymakers. It is a euphemism for road pricing. Zoltan Kazatsay, the EC’s deputy director general for energy and transport says that the revenues will be earmarked for reinvestment into infrastructure and sustainable energy. That would be a drastic change in direction.
More investment in intelligent transport systems (ITS) to help improve traffic flows would be welcome. In unfavourable driving conditions, CO2 emissions increase by 60 per cent, compared to the drive cycle test results.
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The main aim it seems is to modify buying and driving habits in the next few years so that by 2015 we start to see real reductions in CO2 from transport.
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“By 2012 we’ll have the first zero emissions vehicles on the road and then we’ll able able to start winning over customers,” says Daimler’s technical development chief, Dr Thomas Weber. “ITS is also an much more important technology than we sometimes give the impression.”
Besides investing heavily in second generation biofuels and efforts to reduce weight and increase vehicle efficiency, Daimler is also integrating a driver training system into its cars that can help them reduce fuel consumption.
The signs are that Daimler is going to be able to resist the trend towards heavier, less efficient cars. UNEP has joined |
Daimler in calling on the energy providers to get involved in establishing the necessary infrastructure for electric and hydrogen vehicles.
“You can’t expect Daimler, GM or Toyota to pull a patent out of the drawer at the last moment,” says Steiner. “It’s too much to put that responsibility on the shoulders of a single company. It’s a far wider economic issue that needs broad political effort.”
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