According to provisional data, published today by the European Environment Agency (EEA), average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new passenger cars registered in the European Union (EU), Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom (UK), increased in 2019, for the third consecutive year. The average CO2 emissions from new vans also increased slightly. Zero- and low-emission vehicles must be deployed much faster across Europe to achieve the stricter targets that apply from 2020.

The EEA has published the provisional data for the average CO₂ emissions from new passenger cars and vans registered in the EU, Iceland, Norway and the UK in 2019. The provisional 2019 data on new registrations can be explored through a new EEA data dashboard.

After a steady decline from 2010 to 2016, by almost 22 grams of CO₂ per kilometre (g CO₂/km), average emissions from new passenger cars increased in 2017 and in 2018 (by 2.8 g CO₂/km in total). According to provisional data, the upward trend continued with an additional increase of 1.6 g CO₂/km in 2019, reaching 122.4 grams of CO₂ per kilometre. This remains below the target of 130 g CO2/km that applied until 2019 but well above the EU target of 95 g CO₂/km that phases-in this year.

The reasons for the increase in car emissions include the growing share of the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment. The market penetration of electric cars remained slow in 2019.

Vans registered in the EU, Iceland, Norway and the UK in 2019 emitted on average 158.4 g CO₂/km, which is 0.5 g/km more than in 2018. This remains well below the target of 175 g CO₂/km that applied until 2019 but is still 11 g CO₂/km higher than the EU target of 147 g CO₂/km that applies from  this year on. Several factors affected this emission increase, including an increase in the average mass and only a limited increase of the share of electric vans (BEV sand PHEV) from 0.8 % in 2018 to 1.3% in 2019.

Further details are here.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash