“In climate policy, things don’t just happen by themselves”

There will have to be further negotiations about this parliamentary decision with the member states and other stakeholders. But even now, it’s an important step in the implementation of the European Union’s Green Deal. Climate researcher Daniela Jacob is visibly relieved by the news that the package has been approved. “It’s impossible to overstate how important it is that the EU has established a framework that policymakers in the member states are going to have to work with,” says Jacobs, Director of the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon.

The approved package is part of the “Fit for 55” program with which the European Commission aims to ensure that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions in the EU will be reduced by at least 55 percent compared with their 1990 levels. And Europe is to be completely carbon-neutral by 2050. “In the current vote, one of the issues in the transportation sector was tightening the fleet limits,” says Florian Koller from the Institute of Transport Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). “First, the CO2 limits for 2025 and 2030 are being reduced further. And second, there will be a de facto ban starting in 2035 on new registrations for vehicles with engines that burn fossil fuels.”

These are scenarios that Koller and his colleagues have known for a long time, and they have run the numbers on them. Koller heads a focal analysis of the mobility transition and, for all his relief about the new EU package, would have preferred more ambitious targets. “Germany’s Federal Climate Change Act aims to be carbon-neutral by 2045, five years before the EU,” he says. He believes that even the auto industry is more ambitious, adding “At least if you look at the manufacturers’ announcements about when they want to stop producing combustion engine vehicles, you’ll see targets that are much earlier than 2035.”

Koller, who holds a doctorate in psychology, says an important aspect of the energy transition is the distribution of effort. “Psychology plays a role in all political measures,” he says. Fleet limits assign part of the burden to the manufacturers, who have to come up with corresponding offerings. Another part of the burden is on consumers and their usage patterns (such as driving less or using other means of transportation). “The public debate doesn’t include enough discussion about how equitably this mechanism distributes the effort among the different actors.”

But will it be possible to achieve the targeted 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector by 2050 with the measures that have just been adopted? “The average service life of cars is a problem for the short-term targets,” says Koller. Cars are used for an average of 18 years in Germany, so the ban on new registrations starting in 2035 won’t have an immediate impact. But it’s that much more important for reaching the targets in 2050.

These long service lives will mainly be an issue for a much closer intermediate target that calls for a 48 percent reduction by 2030 of transportation sector CO2 emissions compared with 1990. “And to do that, we’ll need the full package,” says Koller. By that he means all three pillars of the Fit for 55 package: supply (which is regulated through the fleet limits that have just been set), usage patterns (which CO2 pricing in particular is intended to affect), and infrastructure expansion (charging stations for electric vehicles, for example, but especially improvements in public transportation). There are also accompanying measures to meet fuel demand, which is steadily decreasing due to electrification, by blending in more carbon-neutral fuels.

Numerous commentators criticized the new EU regulation after its adoption, above all for a lack of technological openness. They say that virtually banning combustion engines means almost only electric vehicles are being permitted as an alternative while other technologies such as carbon-neutral fuels are barred from the outset. GERICS director Jacob, on the other hand, says “I think the decision is fine just the way it is.” She sees it as an important step that EU rules have now been established for the transportation sector, but says it’s also just a small step on the path to the Green Deal’s goals. “In the months and years ahead, there will be plenty of discussions about the next measures coming our way,” she says.

Her wish would be to tackle the farming and forestry sectors and the food production system next. According to Jacob, about 30 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. “That includes everything from farming and forestry to food transport and cooling chains.” Many of these aspects are coming into particular focus due to the war in Ukraine and its impact on food supplies. Will it now be necessary to sacrifice nature reserves in Europe for food production? Will we also need to pave over more land for new industrial parks at the same time? “Land management has to become an issue. And equally important are agricultural measures for storing CO2 in the ground,” says Jacob.

She notes that when it comes to climate action within the EU, Germany “in contrast to a widely held self-perception” is not one of the most decisive countries. She considers Scandinavia, France, Portugal and Spain to be very ambitious, while other EU countries tend to be laggards. As a result, Jacob expects that the negotiations on further decisions related to the Fit for 55 package won’t be easy. Her conclusion after many years in the field: “You have to fight for every decision. In climate policy, things don’t just happen by themselves!”