UK cars rank behind other European countries on efforts to reduce emissions

CO2 emissions from cars in Portugal, Italy and Spain all below Britain's average, according to survey
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 14.54 BST
The UK is lagging behind other European countries on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars, campaigners warned this week.
Britain ranks 16th out of 25 EU member states in a league table of average CO2 emissions from cars, with emissions higher than those in Portugal, Italy and Spain. The survey by campaigners Transport and Environment, which shows Denmark and France are cutting average CO2 levels faster than the UK, comes as several new low-carbon cars were launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show today.
The findings reveal the best-performing car makers have made cuts of up to five times those by the worst manufacturers. BMW and Mazda were two of the fastest-improving firms for CO2 emissions from cars sold in Europe in 2008, with BMW the only company to achieve double-digit (10.2%) cuts in average emissions on 2007 levels. Campaigners said the reason it was now 9th out of 14 car makers on average CO2 levels was because it had introduced efficiency features to all its range, rather than limited to specific models, as Toyota has done with cars such as the hybrid Prius.
PSA Peugeot-Citroen came bottom of the table for improvement, largely because it has made significant progress on efficiency in previous years and is already ranked second best on average emissions behind Fiat.
Major automotive manufacturers are being forced by EU legislation to improve the efficiency of their vehicles — by 2015, all new cars in the EU will be required, on average across European fleets, to emit less than 130g/km CO2. The European Environment Agency estimates cars are responsible for 14% of the EU's CO2 emissions.
Jos Dings, director of transport and 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."
Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth's senior transport campaigner, called on the UK government to tax less efficient cars. "These new figures show that some carmakers who were dragging their feet towards cutting emissions have raised their game. But the UK is well down the EU league table of emissions from new cars. The government must do more to encourage drivers to buy smarter cars that use less fuel by increasing the tax on gas guzzlers," Bosworth said.
As part of the push to a new generation of lower and zero emission cars, several new electric and hybrid cars were unveiled by European car-makers at the Frankfurt Motor Show today. BMW's new hybrid X6 has been criticised over its green claims because it emits 231 grams of CO2 per kilometre - far higher than many conventional cars. VW presented a three-seater electric concept car, called the E-Up, capable of 0-62mph in 11.3 seconds, a top speed of 84mph and a range of "over 80 miles" in between charges - more than the UK's G-Wiz L-Ion but less than Norway's TH!NK City. Other new concept cars on show included Renault's electric saloon, the Fluence Zero, a hybrid RCZ by Peugeot and Audi's e-Tron, a high-performance electric sports car.