The ACEA agreement refers to a voluntary agreement between the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) and the European Commission to limit the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by passenger cars sold in Europe.
Signed in 1998, the agreement sought to achieve an average of 140 g/km of CO2 by 2008 for new passenger vehicles sold by the association's cars in Europe. This target represents a 25% reduction from the 1995 level of 186 g/km and is equivalent to a fuel economy of 5.8 L/100 km or 5.25 L/100 km for petrol and diesel engines respectively. However, the average for the whole car market for 2008 was 153.7 g/km, so the target has not been achieved.
Besides the agreement with ACEA, the European Commission also closed agreements with the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) and Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA). However, for the latter two the target date is 2009 instead of 2008 and as ACEA accounts for 86.4% of car sales in Europe,[1] the impact of the latter two is much smaller.
The ultimate EU target to which these agreements are to contribute, is to reach an average CO2 emission (as measured according to Commission Directive 93/116/EC[2]) of 130 g/km for all new passenger cars by 2015.
The European Commission announced in late 2006 that it is working on a proposal for legally binding measures and limits.
In February 2007, the commission acknowledged the failure of the voluntary agreement.[3] Following this, a proposal of regulation was introduced by the commission on 19 December 2007.
- ^ http://ec.europa.eu/environment/co2/pdf/cars_ia_final_report.pdf[permanent dead link] PDF
- ^ EUR-Lex – 31993L0116 – EN
- ^ Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the Result of the review of the Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars and light commercial vehicles