Main Feature

Carmakers divided over CO2 emissions cuts

Wednesday 16th September 2009

By Mike Jones

Carmakers reduced carbon emissions by wildly varying degrees last year with the best performers achieving four to five times larger cuts than the worst.

Figures published by Transport & Environment (T&E) show BMW and Mazda led the field with 10% and 8.2% reductions to the average CO2 emissions for cars sold in Europe in 2008. But nine of the 14 volume producers in the ranking achieved just 4% or lower.

Improvements to fuel efficiency are directly linked to reductions in CO2 emissions.

A new European law setting binding targets for average CO2 emissions was agreed at the end of last year. According to the report, the striking differences in performance by different carmakers reflect the amount of work each has to do to reach their new EU targets.

Jos Dings, director of Transport & Environment said: "The new EU law is already having an impact. If the overall drop in average CO2 emissions was purely related to the financial crisis, fuel prices or changing consumer behaviour, we would have expected to see every company reducing much more equally. But what is actually happening is that carmakers are seeing how far they have to cut and changing their fleets accordingly."

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