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Green Column

Fight Over Auto Emissions Is Measured in Grams

The battle to control carbon dioxide from automobile tailpipes in the European Union is fought by the gram — a measure roughly equivalent to the weight of a paperclip.

Greenhouse gases in these amounts may sound tiny, but they could affect millions of jobs in the Union and help determine Europe’s future as a major manufacturer.

Four years ago, France, where Renault and PSA Peugeot-Citroën produce small and fuel-efficient cars, favored a proposal requiring each automaker’s fleet to emit, on average, 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer, or about two ounces per 0.6 mile.

Germany, home to heavier and more fuel-hungry luxury brands like Mercedes and Porsche, was vehemently opposed. More than 35 percent of the European car industry’s 2.3 million workers who are involved in vehicle production are in Germany, a major auto exporter.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, eventually struck a deal with the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to delay full implementation of those measures — the Union’s first such mandatory targets — by three years, to 2015.

The rules also were tweaked in subtle but important ways. Carmakers would be credited with 10 grams per kilometer of cuts for taking steps like equipping cars with engines compatible with biofuels and adding tire-pressure monitors and other gizmos to urge drivers to adopt fuel-saving behaviors.

Automakers also could win seven grams of extra credit through so-called eco-innovations, like solar panels installed on car roofs, that are not normally part of emissions tests.

And rather than paying €95, or $121, for each gram above the target on each registered car, as originally proposed, automakers that missed the target by one to three grams faced far more modest penalties of €5 to €25 for each excess gram. Italy and Britain also won special treatment for low-volume luxury brands like Aston Martin and Ferrari.

Finally, automakers were entitled to so-called supercredits allowing them to count cars emitting less than 50 grams of CO2 initially as 3.5 cars, diminishing the need to phase out high-emitting vehicles.

This year there could be another round of difficult negotiations and further demands to water down the rules.

Connie Hedegaard, the E.U. commissioner for climate action, is expected to present legislation in July that would require the passenger car fleet to attain average emissions of 95 grams per kilometer by the end of the decade. The average level of CO2 for new vehicles sold in 2010 in the European Union was 140.3 grams per kilometer, according to the European Environment Agency.

But approval for the recommendations is needed from governments and the European Parliament, which allows plenty of scope for lobbying before any new target becomes law.

This time around, the focus is on whether the industry will be given latitude because of the poor economy. Sales of midsize vehicles have plunged across Europe, leading to manufacturing overcapacity and squeezing profits.

Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Fiat and the head of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, a trade group, has warned that “today, very few manufacturers make money in Europe.”

The automakers’ association said reaching a target of 95 grams by the end of the decade would be “extremely challenging, in view of the required technological transformation, the necessary market uptake and the wider economic context that forces cost absorption through other channels than product price.”

Not all automakers face the same problems. Sales of premium brands like BMW and Audi have held up better than those of lower-price cars, because affluent buyers have not suffered as much in the economic downturn, and because the manufacturers have broadened their ranges to make stylish, less-expensive small models.

Moreover, some of the world’s biggest car parts companies have endorsed the target as part of an effort to make Europe a more competitive manufacturing hub.

“We firmly believe reaching 95 grams by 2020 is feasible,” said Jean-Marc Gales, the chief executive of the European Association of Automotive Suppliers and a former board member of PSA Peugeot-Citroën.

Mr. Gales, whose association’s members include Bosch and Delphi, said simple and inexpensive systems like those that cut engines when cars are at a standstill had already delivered big reductions in emissions.

Last year, a report commissioned by Ms. Hedegaard’s department found that some of the most expensive technologies, like electric cars, now looked unnecessary for meeting the 95-gram target because making improvements to cars with internal combustion engines had turned out to be cheaper than originally thought.

The report said there should be no continuation of “super-credits” that diminished automakers’ incentives to phase out high-emitting vehicles. But the report, prepared by TNO, a Dutch research organization, also warned that automakers still needed time to adjust.

Some environmental groups say the 95-gram target is not ambitious enough and are pushing for binding targets of 80 grams by the end of this decade and 60 grams by the middle of the next decade.

One such group, Transport & Environment, said the ambition was justified because the car industry’s previous warnings that binding targets would make cars unaffordable had been proved false.

Carmakers could hit their targets for the middle of this decade before the deadline and without the need to raise prices significantly for consumers, said Greg Archer, who runs the group’s clean vehicles program.

Another group, Greenpeace, warned that a failure to set adequate targets beyond 2020 for passenger cars could derail the European goal of making cars deliver the largest reduction of emissions from the transport sector by the middle of the century.

The industry “has to be led by the nose on fuel efficiency,” said Franziska Achterberg, the E.U. transport policy adviser for Greenpeace. “Politicians and bureaucrats should hold their nerve,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on   in The International Herald Tribune. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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