A European Commission spokeswoman I spoke with did not exactly criticize German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CO2 speech yesterday, but said Chancellor Merkel was missing the point when she voiced Germany's opposition to mandated CO2 caps in EU countries.
Chancellor Merkel seems to be saying — if the German-to-English translations of her speech are accurate — that Germany will not stand for mandated CO2 emissions caps. Made-in-Germany V8 Mercedes or Porsche Cayennes should not have caps, for example. But according to the EC spokesman, it is a question of CO2 emissions "averages," which will not be specific to individual makes of cars. Chancellor Merkel need not have her concerns, the spokeswoman said.
From where I sit as a French citizen between Brussels and Germany, this is what I see: Chancellor Merkel will probably never have to announce that all cars will have to adhere to the CO2 emission limits in the EU. Regardless, the EC will in any case likely not pass any legislation if the FT report we cited today is to be believed.
I don't want to be too cynical but is it just a coincidence that the EC said it would not announce whether or not it will mandate CO2 emission regulations this week as planned — just when the global climate change conference is taking place in Paris? How would an EC announcement go over about how it has no plans to mandate how much CO2 cars could emit into the already polluted atmosphere?
Meanwhile as the politicians finagle around with their rhetoric, an Associated Press report picked up in the International Herald Tribune today says scientists at the climate change conference this week are virtually certain that fossil fuel burning is causing the atmosphere to heat up, with temperatures increasing between 1.5-5.8 C (2.5-10.4 F) by 2100. Will cars as we know them even exist then?
