The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) welcomes the joint adoption yesterday by the European Parliament Environment (ENVI) and Transport (TRAN) Committees of the draft report on the proposal for an EU Regulation on the accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of transport services.
The rail sector considers this draft report, which addresses the calculation of transport emissions and the related provision of information to customers, to be an improvement on the Commission proposal which was published last July. The proposed Regulation would establish a common methodology and harmonised set of default values which will allow a fair comparison of transport modes and more informed consumer choices.
The ENVI and TRAN Committees correctly maintain that the EU’s standardised regulatory framework on GHG accounting should be based on EN ISO standard 14083:2023 throughout the entire multimodal transport chain. This takes into account a well-to-wheel approach to correctly calculate the emissions from energy and, in the future, to extend this by a life-cycle approach, in particular emissions from manufacturing, maintenance and disposal of vehicles. Such future improvements to the methodology could also include the inclusion of air pollution caused by transport services, thus complying with the principle of internalisation of external costs in transport.
The Parliament position is contributing to a more robust and credible methodology, which is essential to avoid greenwashing and to provide a fair comparison between various transport modes. The Regulation will also cover digital mobility services, as well as digital navigation services and journey route planning services, and lays out rules to ensure that the most environmentally friendly option would be displayed first, as well as providing an easy comparison between different modes on offer, empowering consumer awareness and choice.
CER congratulates co-Rapporteur MEPs Canfin and Thaler, the shadow Rapporteurs, and all the ENVI-TRAN Members of Parliament active on the file on this important first step.
CER Executive Director Alberto Mazzola said: “European railways expect the new CountEmissionsEU methodology to better address the EU transport decarbonisation challenge by facilitating well-informed customer choices in relation to both passenger journeys and freight shipments. Energy-efficient and low CO2 intensity modes must be recognised and promoted, and this proposed EU harmonised tool could offer a suitable framework for achieving this. We look forward to the finalisation of the Parliament position in April”.
(CER)
