The European Parliament prohibits selling combustion cars in 2035 and the Commission wants buses without emissions in 2030

The European Union has taken this Tuesday a definitive step towards the decarbonisation of its land transport.

The European Parliament has given its final approval to the ban, from 2035, on the sale in European territory of new combustion cars and vans, including gasoline, diesel and hybrid ones.

While the MEPs raised their hands in Strasbourg to ratify this first legislative agreement of the new European strategy to strengthen the fight against climate change, the

approved in 2021, from Brussels, the European Commission launched a proposal that seeks to go further: accelerate the green transition also among heavy vehicles —trucks and buses— for which it has proposed new, more “ambitious” goals to reduce CO₂ emissions .

It is not a trivial question: trucks, urban and long-distance buses are, Brussels stresses, responsible for more than 6% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU and 25% of those from road transport.

The vote in Strasbourg was initially a mere formality, since the agreement in the so-called

—the final negotiations between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council— had been reached at the end of October.

But the result of the vote, which was not as comfortable as it could be — 340 votes in favor, 279 against and 21 abstentions — shows how much resistance there is still in some sectors towards these measures that for many are inevitable to reinforce the fight against climate change, but which come up against the fears of those who fear that it will affect the economy, especially in the automobile sector.

Although the ultimate goal is to reduce CO₂ emissions from new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles to zero by 2035, the regulation also has intermediate emission reduction targets for 2030: 55% for cars and 50% for vans compared to with the level of 2021.

With the new regulation, the EU "is going to take an important step to achieve the objective of climate neutrality in 2050" and "to give regulatory certainty to the sector", has valued the socialist MEP Javi López, whose European family, S&D, has supported measure.

On the contrary, the European People's Party (EPP) has spoken out against it.

For the German MEP from the conservative CDU Dennis Radtke, the decision "puts 1.4 million jobs in Europe at risk" by "undermining" Germany's position as one of the nerve centers of the automotive industry, while "putting Chinese competition in

(the most favorable position)”, he lamented in a statement.

“It is an essential stage for the environment.

Now we have to win the industrial battle”, replied the Frenchman Pascal Canfin (Renew), president of the European Parliament's environmental commission that led the negotiations for this agreement, which he has not hesitated to call “historic”.

Now that the objectives for cars have been approved, from Brussels, the vice-president of the Commission and head of the Green Pact, Frans Timmermans, presented the main lines of the next objectives of the EU.

According to the plans of the European Executive, heavy vehicles must gradually reduce their CO₂ emissions from now until 2040.

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Europe agrees to ban the sale of cars and vans with combustion engines from 2035

The only exception is in the case of urban buses, whose conversion will be faster and more radical.

The Commission considers that these vehicles have fewer technical problems than others potentially subjected to extreme conditions (lower temperatures or harsher terrain requiring more fuel or technology not necessarily yet up to the challenge).

In addition, when carrying out fixed and urban routes, they have an easier time recharging at night.

For this reason, urban buses must all be zero-emission by 2030. Many cities, the Commission recalls, have already announced plans to change their urban bus fleet completely before then.

For the rest of the heavy vehicles, Brussels proposes a more gradual emission reduction plan: until 2030, all new heavy vehicles will cut their CO₂ emissions by 45% compared to the reference date of 2019. This is quite a target. more ambitious than the one prevailing up to now, which was a 30% reduction.

By 2035, the rate should reach 65%, in order to reach 90% fewer emissions in 2040 compared to the base date of 2019.

“To reach our zero pollution targets, all transport sectors must actively contribute,” said Timmermans.

With the new proposal, he added, "we make sure that the new trucks are less polluting and that more zero-emission buses cross our cities."

Because, he has concluded, "fighting the climate crisis, improving the quality of life of citizens and boosting European industrial competitiveness go hand in hand".

The proposal affects trucks from five tons, urban and long-distance buses of 7.5 tons, as well as trailers.

Although these in themselves do not pollute, including them implies that the truck that hauls them must also comply with the new regulations, Timmermans has pointed out.

The only heavy vehicles exempt from these new goals would be those for mining, forestry or agricultural use, as well as vehicles for the armed forces, civil protection, firefighters or garbage trucks, among others.

polluting trucks

The Commission defends that it is a "significant expansion of the scope of regulation."

However, there are those who consider that they do not go far enough, in view of the climate emergency.

The environmental organization Transport and Environment (T&E) has lamented that, in 2040, there will still be up to 10% of heavy vehicles that still pollute, especially trucks that use diesel.

The "failure" to set a deadline for polluting trucks is a "cowardly concession" to the manufacturers of these vehicles, lamented the NGO sector specialist, Fedor Unterlohner.

What's more, the organization points out, the heavy vehicle reduction plans for 2030 that Brussels is now proposing are even less advanced than those of the industry itself.

Even so, for the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the goals proposed by Brussels are an opportunity that should not be ignored.

"Although the proposed CO₂ standards are not going to fully decarbonise the sector by 2050, they set out an ambitious long-term vision, broaden the spectrum of regulated vehicles and move rapidly towards 100% electric buses", considers the head of the CO₂ program. heavy vehicles of the independent organization, Felipe Rodríguez.

“These are promising signs with the potential to catalyze the breakthrough transformation the sector needs,” he says.

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