Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 September 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Impact on Carbon Budgets of Trend Towards Heavier and Larger Vehicles: Discussion

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos:

As has been mentioned, it does not exist yet at EU level. There are some initiatives and discussions. For instance, Belgium or Germany are talking about this trend towards SUVs. In terms of ways to disincentivise, we have already mentioned miles and bonus policies, which exist in France. There are even some policies about parking and also congestion. Depending on how big your car is, there is an additional fee for your parking slot. What can be done at EU level is to look more closely at the different fuel economy targets, where they use a reference like where the fuel economy target varies depending on whether it is a heavier or lighter car. There is always a reference weight for that. What needs to be done is to look more closely at that and incentivise the penetration of smaller cars rather than having the opposite trend.