{"id":450316,"date":"2026-04-14T16:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/04\/14\/denuncia-degli-ambientalisti-lindustria-dellauto-contro-i-target-ue-sulla-co2-ci-costa-74-miliardi-in-piu\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T17:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:34:59","slug":"environmentalists-claim-the-car-industry-is-opposing-eu-co2-targets-it-will-cost-us-an-extra-74-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/04\/14\/environmentalists-claim-the-car-industry-is-opposing-eu-co2-targets-it-will-cost-us-an-extra-74-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmentalists claim: &#8220;The car industry is opposing EU CO2 targets. It will cost us an extra 74 billion&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels &#8211; <strong>The automotive industry is seeking changes to the European mobility agenda by calling for a reduction in CO2 emission targets, a move that could, however, cost an additional \u20ac74 billion.<\/strong> The criticism comes from Transport &amp; Environment (T&amp;E), <span lang=\"it-IT\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transportenvironment.org\/about-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the umbrella organisation for NGOs<\/a>&nbsp;for sustainable transport, which criticises the decision to scale back ambitions for electric vehicles in order to continue focusing on traditional fossil fuel-based solutions, a choice deemed &#8220;irresponsible&#8221; in light of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/20\/the-war-in-iran-is-sending-prices-soaring-across-the-eu-petrol-up-15-per-cent-diesel-up-26-per-cent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rise in petrol and diesel prices as a result of the war in Iran<\/a>.<\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>T&amp;E has obtained a&nbsp;<span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/uploads.transportenvironment.org\/production\/images\/2026_03_ACEA_paper_Environment_Council.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confidential document&nbsp;<\/a>drafted by ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers\u2019 Association, and sent to EU environment ministers to relax<\/span>&nbsp;emissions regulations. Environmentalists argue that<strong>&nbsp;&#8220;l<strong>ower targets&nbsp;<\/strong>would deprive motorists of more affordable electric models<\/strong>, at precisely the moment when we need to reduce our dependence on oil.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In essence, <strong>the automotive industry is calling for the EU\u2019s CO2 emission reduction targets to be averaged over five years (2028\u20132032) rather than three<\/strong> years (2030\u20132032) as envisaged&nbsp;by the European Commission. A proposal that amounts to a &#8220;significant weakening&#8221; of the strategy, T&amp;E further claims, arguing that if ACEA\u2019s demands were accepted, <strong>sales of electric cars &#8220;could remain stuck at the current market share of 21 per cent for the rest of the decade<\/strong>, instead of reaching the 57 per cent currently projected for 2030 under existing legislation.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the industry is calling for the planned update&nbsp;<span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">to the&nbsp;utility factor&nbsp;to be &#8220;reconsidered and scrapped&#8221;; this parameter is used to estimate the proportion of electric driving in plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and to more realistically determine their actual CO2 emissions<\/span>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hence the calculations and the warning from Transport &amp; Environment: ACEA\u2019s proposal \u201c<strong>could cost the EU up to an additional \u20ac74 billion in oil imports between 2026 and 2035<\/strong>, significantly reducing the amount of crude oil that would otherwise be replaced by the use of electric cars if current rules remained unchanged.\u201d Furthermore, this same set of proposals &#8220;could <strong>increase CO2 emissions from European cars by up to 2.4 gigatonnes <\/strong>between 2026 and 2050 compared to current legislation, the equivalent of over five years\u2019 worth of emissions from the current EU car fleet.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In response to calls from the automotive industry, NGOs are urging the European Parliament and the Council to &#8220;maintain the current emission reduction targets for new cars and boost demand for electric vehicles, by supporting more ambitious electrification targets and excluding plug-in hybrids from the proposed regulation to decarbonise company car fleets.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transport &amp; Environment against ACEA: &#8220;Under the manufacturers&#8217; proposals, CO2 emissions from European cars could rise by up to 2.4 gigatonnes between 2026 and 2050&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":450299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30806],"tags":[28914,26298,25810,25744,25886,29999,26099,33394],"class_list":["post-450316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobility-logistics","tag-acea-en","tag-automotive-en","tag-auto-en","tag-industry-en","tag-sustainability-en","tag-to-and","tag-transport-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450317,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450316\/revisions\/450317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}