Scientists plead for tech-neutral approach to transport
About 200 scientists have sent a joint letter to the European Commission's president and its senior commissioners – including the three for energy, transport and the internal market – urging them to take a technology-neutral approach to reducing CO2 emissions. By only considering the tail-pipe emissions, they ignore the harm done in the manufacturing of electric vehicles, they say.
Every climate protection measure must be subject to equally strict sustainability criteria that take into account ecological, social and health impacts across the entire global value chain, they say.
But the current legislative package – including the energy taxation directive, the CO2 fleet regulation for passenger cars and heavy goods vehicles and the renewable energy directive – will not set "sustainable and essential framework conditions for long-term climate protection," the June 17 letter says.
They call for a "professional discussion" with the EC on the role that vehicles running on gas and liquid fuels, already broadly affordable, can play in helping the European Union achieve its net zero carbon objective in sustainable way.
According to some research, it is only after the first 60,000 km that the average electric vehicle offsets the emissions from its production. Ignoring the composition of the power generation mix is another way of concealing the environmental impact. Electric vehicles are popular in Norway where nearly all the power is renewable electricity, but charging an electric vehicle in Germany or Poland, where coal and lignite are still used, might be counter-productive.