ENVI committee expedites automotive green steel credits
By Google News Motors ·
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) adopted its position on revised climate targets for the EU’s automotive sector on 5 November. The amendments reduce the overall ambition of the Commission’s initial proposal, but do introduce a more significant role for low-carbon steel procurement.
The European Commission originally proposed adjustments to the EU’s established automotive CO2 reduction targets in December of last year, as part of its broader policy package to support “a clean and competitive European automotive sector.”
Responsible for leading Parliament’s assessment of the Commission proposal, the EU’s ENVI committee has this week reached internal agreement on how the automotive sector’s climate targets should be aligned against the EU’s wider decarbonisation ambitions, and industrial competitiveness realities.
While the revised targets will not become law until affirmative votes are secured from the full European Parliament and Council, the passing of a consolidated compromise package is positive both for the implementation of pragmatic low-carbon policy incentives for the automotive sector, and the establishment of lead markets for the EU’s emerging green steel production.
ENVI’s compromise amendments reduce overall climate tailpipe emission reduction targets for passenger car fleets from 100% to 87.5% from 2035, with an additional 7.5% reduction target (for an effective total 95% reduction) that would be satisfied with credits awarded for consumption of “low-carbon steel made in the EU.” Van targets for 2030 would be reduced to 35% from the existing 50%, with 2035 targets similarly
reduced from 100% to 80%.
Low-carbon steel credits could similarly be used to meet 7.5% of the van target from 2035, but consumption is not mandatory, as with passenger vehicles (car tailpipe emission targets are only to be reduced to 87.5% if low-carbon steel credits supplement to 95%).
The use of these “low-carbon steel credits” to meet overall targets would become available immediately once the new rules go into effect (as opposed post-2035 as originally proposed by the Commission) but target mitigation would be limited to 3% pre-2035, before increasing to the 7.5% level from 2035.
As is becoming tradition with the EU’s ongoing efforts to create lead markets for green steel, ENVI’s proposals do not make efforts to define what green steel actually is, again citing a forthcoming definition under the iron and steel-specific delegated act to the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).
Dow Jones Energy has closely tracked the crafting of this definition, originally to be contained in the Commission’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) proposal, before being delayed to the ESPR as a casualty of industry disagreements on both ‘sliding scale’ adjustment mechanisms and interactions with ‘Made in EU’ domestic content requirements.
First, on domestic content requirements, ENVI’s amended proposal would limit the availability of low-carbon steel credits to only those steels “made in the EU.” According to ENVI, “steel is considered made within the EU if it has been originally melted and poured within the Union”, and directly cites the ‘melted and poured’ rules introduced under the steel overcapacity regulation, which intensified the EU’s steel
protection framework from July of this year.
‘Sliding scale’ adjustments work to grant cleaner classifications to steel products the lower the share of steel scrap in their production…
Originally published by Google News Motors
