CO2 Emissions For Vehicles In EU, Iceland And Norway Fall Most In Ten Years

The average total emissions for new passenger vehicles registered in the EU, Iceland, Norway and the U.K. fell the steepest in ten years in 2020, according to new data provided by the European Environment Agency.

Total emissions decreased by 14.5g of CO2/km during the year, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The decline was attributed mostly to a “surge” in the share of plug-in hybrid and fully EV vehicle registrations, which tripled to 11% from 3.5% in 2019. The agency says that despite electric cars rising in prominence, that only “limited” progress was made in electrifying vans. 

This followed data out in 2019 which showed that car emissions had increased for the third consecutive year. In 2019, average emissions of new passenger cars registered in the European Union, Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom (UK) were 122.3 g CO2/km, according to the European Environmental Agency. 

The agency said that according to its provisional data, average emissions of new passenger cars registered in 2020 were 107.8 grams of CO2/km.

Recall, we wrote back in early June that one firm, natural resource investors Goehring & Rozencwajg (G&R), a “fundamental research firm focused exclusively on contrarian natural resource investments with a team with over 30 years of dedicated resource experience,” was making the argument that EVs only offered a negligible CO2 different from ICE vehicles. 

The firm, established in 2015, posted a blog entry entitled “Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint” last month, where they called into question a former ICE vs. EV comparison performed by the Wall Street Journal and, while citing work performed by Jefferies, argued that there could literally be “no reduction in CO2 output” in some EV vs. ICE comparisons. 

The argument could be moot, however, as most auto manufacturers – like Audi, for instance, have already committed to phasing out all ICE vehicles in coming years.