Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Another EU strategy, also targeted at lowering traffic emissions, is to accelerate
the introduction of alternative transmission concepts by establishing homologation
standards, e.g. for electric vehicles, research and development funding, as well as
setting up public procurement guidance (see below).
The EU green car initiative is targeted at the encouragement of all road transport
stakeholders to move towards more sustainable transport, mainly by funding
industry research and development.
7.3.2 Public Procurement
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is defined in the Communication (COM [
10
],
400) “Public procurement for a better environment” as “[
] a process whereby
public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced
environmental impact throughout their life cycle [
...
]”. Since public authorities
are major consumers in Europe and green public procurement is also targeted
at vehicle fleets, public authorities should also provide industry with real incentives
for developing green technologies and products that offer environmental benefits.
GPP is a voluntary instrument, which means that
...
individual Member States
and public authorities can determine the extent
to which they implement
it
themselves.
7.3.3 Counterproductive Community Measures for Traffic
Besides the critical measures mentioned above, it has to be kept in mind that other
community activities have counterproductive effects on air quality. The European
Single Market has fostered growth of mobility, with side effects. The objective of
the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T
22
) is to make traffic efficient and
safe, but it has been shown that they bring about additional traffic with negative
ecological consequences.
Liberalisation of rail networks may lead to a decrease of public transport offers
in more remote areas and to an increase in car traffic.
The liberalisation of air traffic leads to increased air traffic volumes, with effects
on the air quality in areas around airports.
7.3.4 Measures for Off-Road Machinery incl. Ships
Europe-wide emission standards for off-road machinery are laid down in Directive
97/68/EC and Directive 2004/26/EC. Due to the introduction of more challenging
22
Planned set of transport networks designed to serve entire Europe, see
http://tentea.ec.europa.eu/.
