BRUSSELS (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. led carmakers in cutting CO2 emissions in Europe last year and is closest to achieving its target under EU legislation, an environmental transport group said.
As part of efforts to fight climate change, the EU endorsed legislation in 2008 to reduce CO2 from new cars sold in Europe in 2015 by one-fifth on average to 130 grams a kilometer through varying targets for individual manufacturers. The curbs will be phased in between 2012 and 2015.
Toyota cut CO2 discharges by 10 percent last year and is now “best placed” to comply with the 2015 target, according to the report by Brussels-based Transport & Environment. This compares with a record 5.1 percent drop in the car industry's sales-weighted average emissions of carbon dioxide per kilometer.
“Carmakers in Europe are heading for very significant overcompliance with the CO2 regulation and are hence likely to hit the target for 2015 years in advance,” Transport & Environment said. “The study's findings suggest that carmakers previously exaggerated the time needed to comply with car CO2 limits.”
Toyota, Suzuki, Daimler, Mazda and Ford appear to achieve the most progress in reducing emissions through better technologies rather than sales of small cars amid the financial crisis, according to the study.
Toyota's average emissions dropped to 132 grams a kilometer last year from 147 grams in 2008. This is the second-lowest level after Fiat, whose average CO2 discharges dropped 5.3 percent to 131 grams, the report showed.
A draft law from October last year would cut average CO2 from new vans by 14 percent to 175 grams a kilometer as of 2016 after a phase-in that begins two years earlier. Those targets should be tightened, according to the report.
Wider European curbs on the transport industry's greenhouse gases including CO2, the main such pollutant, would bolster an EU goal to cut such emissions by at least 20 percent in 2020 from 1990 levels. The EU is considering deepening that target to 30 percent should other countries follow suit.
