Wow, the parliament is clearly in the pocket of the German and French car manufacturers. What a mess. And strange to see the EP being far more conservative than the EComm. Normally its the other way around.

Wow, it's getting harder and harder to bash the good ole US of A. With China becoming the world leader in CO2 output, Kyoto being a complete failure, now the EU falls behind the EPA.

What is the world coming too!

What is more, these strange people from the European Parliament and from some environmental quarters are demanding bizarre things: they want biofuels to cut emissions by 50%. Biofuels that cut emissions by 49.9% and thus contribute seriously to climate change, would be banned! How surreal!

Such an arbitrary target is completely absurd. A biofuel is a fuel that is made from plants, plain and simple. All sustainably produced biofuels that reduce emissions, even if only 5%, should be welcomed because they help fight climate change. Why put this target at 50% and exclude all European and North American biofuels?

Wimps! Even if they were going to tweak their standard, they should have held it longer to force more companies in that direction. Besides, with series hybrids, maybe they could have made it and then some!

I wonder how many of these parliamentarians drive Mercedes.

Hence the notion that much of the GHG hysteria is cult behavior. "Our way or doomsday!"

This is a German proposal which hasn't been adopted yet. I doubt it will either as Germany are isolated on this. This MEP is German and also it was Merkel who diluted the 120g proposal to a 130g proposal which was also pushed back in time. Germany is also the only country in Europe as of 2008 without a car purchase tax and annual registration based on CO2. As far as cities go, Germany is the last in Europe there as well, and refuse to charge entry based on emission levels (see the examples of London, Stockholm, and Milan), simply because German cars pollute the most, and by a country mile.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jan2008/gb20080114_492087.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories
"...This is just intended to wage a trade war against the German auto industry by the French and Italians..."
(see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACEA_agreement
)

The EU is still aiming to do better than the environmental car standards in Japan, while it is also true that China, who are well behind, have higher standards than in the US:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/07/icct-releases-n.html

Kyoto failed because the U.S. didn't join it.

@James,

If the Kyoto idiocy failed, it didn't fail because of the US. It died of hypocrisy. The
EU, the loud pompous boasting proponents signed to cut their emission. Loud talk ,no action. the never even tried to meet their treaty obligation. Instead they grew emissions by 21%

The whole world including the exempt countries like China and India, only grew their emissions by 18%.

Th "wicked" USA didn't sign something that no one could meet; but actually tried. The US emissions are up by only 7%. And US industry uses no more energy than it did in 1990.

Unlike the EU whose population was plummeting, the US had lots of immigrants, legal and illegal, and the population, number of houses, number of cars and trucks all went up. The economy grew by almost one third. The US produces one third more goods and services at no increase in the use of energy.

The excuse that US did well by Kyoto because it s industry moved overseas, won't completely wash either. For example, the US Steel industry has been almost completely rebuilt at a much higher efficiency than it used to be, and produces more steel than it did back then. The US auto industry produces more cars and trucks than it ever did. But there are lots of new companies making cars and trucks in America.

Kyoto is global hysteria and cynical posturing by loud-mouth hot air left wing loons masquerading as political leaders. By 2012 its "targets" will be as irrelevant as Y2K fears. The pseudo-Science of GHG induced AGW, is daily being downgraded by the UN's own IPCC scientists.

Stan

Would you please stop to spread out wrong facts as if there were true or then please cite your sources.

Where did you get that american energy consumption didn't increase these past years ? that is absolutely wrong and irresponsible to say that: America is the country of energy wasteful habits, and this has to change.

You said american uses no more energy than in 1990, maybe, but it is only because they outsourced their industry, not because they tried to save energy.

American steel industry is the less productive in the world, to the point they were obliged to restrict the import because they couldn't compete against the european import. American car industry has also the worse productivity in the world and is technological behing europe and japan.

Kyoto didn't meet its target yes

A quick Wikipedia check proved Stan's statements absolutely wrong. EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions (including LULUCF) were reduced by 2.6% between 1990 and 2004. In Germany, they were even reduced by 18.2%. The US greenhouse gas emissions however increased by 21.1% during the same time.
See the following wikipedia link for more details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Increase_in_greenhouse_gas_emission_since_1990

Stuff the German mafia. I suspected yesterday that this proposal wouldn't go through. Barroso, the Commission president, has already said that European interests are going to be upheld (read "upheld over the German lobbyists")
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iDVKsKh2-rs_-GxCWukdD4ChIPkg

I believe Barroso himself is hardly green , driving himself a VW toureg W12,
this is part of the problem here in Europe , the EU is so two faced and
panders to the german car industry on every level , the standard commissioners
car is usually a 3.5 litre merc , a couple of years back the environment
commissioner almost lost his job for favouring a Prius over the standard
Merc.
These people are not to be trusted to do the right thing when the chips
are down !

IMHO, this proposed delay would be acceptable if the following caveats were added:

1) the test procedure for the affected vehicles classes should be based on the Common Artemis Driving Cycle (CADC) instead of the current, unrealistically lax NEDC.

2) car makers should be set an interim fleet average target of 140gCO/km for MY 2012-2014, based on the CADC. Those whose fleets come in under this target would receive credits they can use either to slightly exceed the 125gCO2/km limit for 2015 until they are used up or, to sell to a competitor. No credits could be accumulated after MY 2014. Financial penalties for non-compliance would kick in starting MY 2015.

3) Businesses should no longer be able to write off from their corporate tax bill the purchase or lease cost of company cars (excl. delivery and service trucks) that emit more than 150% of the target fleet average CO2 emissions for that MY. That would translate to a maximum of 210gCO2/km in the CADC for MY 2012-2014 and 188gCO2/km from MY 2015 onward.

I can't believe this.

I would have thought that the European Commission is in the pocket of the automakers not the Parliament. It seems that I was wrong and it is the other way around.

It is very irresponsible from the Parliament that passed this. Shame on you EU MEPs.

The parliament only adopted the recommendation to the commission that things be pushed back by three years.
Its not going to happen. What the German lobbyists obtained yesterday and in November with Merkel (the 120g proposal being watered down to 130 and being pushed back in time) is for a proposal being adopted. The commission will not see this through. It goes totally against all the national emission tax rebates already adopted by all the individual countries (when you buy the car, annual registration, congestion charges, etc...) except Germany. Recall also that Bali was only a few weeks ago. The stakes for the EU are too high when it comes to environmental problems and there are limits even to the German mafia.

It would be nice indeed for the EU administration to set an example by switching to a fleet of electric or CNG vehicles, just as many administrations at all levels, from inside and outside the EU, have already done.

I said and I meant that US INDUSTRY uses no more energy than it did in 1990. Despite growing output by a large amount. Meanwhile the US population grew by a significant amount, and the larger population needed to be housed, supplied with goods from the commercial sector, and transported. Those uses are certainly increased.

Even there it should be clear that all those sectors are substituting electricity for fossil fuels. Every one of these sectors is stable in the use of fossil. The residential and commercial sector equipped with oil or natural gas heat is stable but little addition is occurring; ditto for all other fuels save electricity.

The Transportation sector is the only one that is not there (yet), while awaiting a suitable substitute. That suitable substitute is coming; as any reader of these pages not blinded by polemics can see industry gearing up with fossil fuel substitutes.

Please see:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec2_3.pdf
http://bioage.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/24/eiaco22006.png

As these sources are produced by a US government organization, the Energy Information Agency, these figures do have some creditability.