France and four other European Union countries have called for ambitious CO2 emissions reduction targets for trucks, ahead of a proposal from the European Commission expected later this month. France says it wants “ambitious objectives to be fixed for 2025, 2030 and 2050 in order to expand efforts to decarbonise transport.” Ministers from Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Luxembourg call on the Commission to set a CO2 emission reduction target of at least 24 percent for 2025 and 35-45 percent for 2030. Unlike other countries such as the United States, China, Japan and Canada, the EU has no limits on CO2 emissions from trucks, which account for a quarter of road transport emissions while making up just 5 percent of the vehicles on the road. The Commission will propose the EU’s first-ever CO2 standards for trucks on May 16, following which they will have to be agreed by the European Parliament and national governments. The EU wants to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transport as part of a drive to cut emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. – Reuters

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