Making cars more efficient will not necessarily curb our emissions

Even the Greens whose support one might think could be taken for granted have lost no time in criticising the proposals on the grounds of weakness and lack of long term targets. Not a ringing endorsement then for Mr Dimas, the environment commissioner, whose responsibility it will now be to steer these proposals through the European Council and the European Parliament. This may not prove an easy task.

Even the Commission is split down the middle. Half the Commissioners, we are told, believe with Mr Dimas that as vehicle emissions have risen by a quarter between 1994 and 2004 and now comprise about an eighth of all Europe's carbon emissions, action to curb them is overdue. The other half, led by the German industry commissioner, Guenter Verheugen, believes that the measures discriminate unfairly against the large car producers. In this he is supported by Mrs Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who is certain to fight hard against the Dimas plans in the European Council.

These proposals strike me as yet another victory for symbolism over substance. We all remember the story of the man searching for his car keys under the lamp post who says he is searching there because that is the only place where it is light enough to see. He is obviously searching - can be seen to be searching - but his search is not very likely to be effective. In this case efficiency is only one of a whole range of factors that determine the total carbon that a car emits.

No one seems, for instance, to be asking why German cars are typically big and Italian cars small. The reason, it seems to me, has to do with the respective prices of petrol in the 1950s and 1960s when the car industries in those states were determining their future strategies. In places like Germany and Britain, fuel was relatively cheap; in France and in Italy it was expensive. The Italians therefore developed the Cinquecento, while Mercedes refined their limousines. Not surprisingly the United States, where fuel prices were cheapest of all, produced the biggest and thirstiest cars.

Moreover, the reason that vehicle emissions are increasing is not, surely, that people are buying bigger cars, but that they are buying more cars and driving them further. This may be because, relative to everything else, fuel prices have fallen in Europe since the 1950s, and the capital cost of vehicles has tumbled.

Improving car emission performance will reduce motoring costs even further. We may emit less carbon per kilometre, but overall there will be more cars and more kilometres. It does not necessarily follow that if emissions per kilometre fall, then total emissions will fall. This is particularly true if a big car is substituted by two smaller cars.

In any case, why should the Commission be focusing on vehicles? Certainly they are important - but they are only one element of everyone's carbon footprint and certainly not the biggest. Carbon emissions from fuel burnt to keep our homes and offices warm are roughly twice those from vehicles. And then there are emissions from lifestyle choices such as long haul holidays.

As it happens I drive what might be classed as a economical car from a French manufacturer. Because I work from home I don't have to drive to work. My own footprint, vehicle-wise at least, is therefore low. But it would still be low, I imagine, if I tootled around in a Mercedes.

Ideally we should all, I suppose, have our own personal carbon emission allowance which might force us to buy more expensive zero carbon energy to heat our homes - or to install more thermal installation - if we wanted to drive a larger car or to take several airborne holidays a year. Individuals might buy and sell their carbon allowances just as large European commercial institutions have been doing for the last three years. But the bureaucracy involved in such a scheme - even if managed on some kind of 'self-assessment' basis - would, I suspect, prove impractical.

The only other practical measure to dissuade people from buying bigger cars, turning up the thermostat and jetting off for the weekend with increasing frequency is an increase in the cost of carbon based fuel. The difficulty with that is that the cost of fuel is such a large component of industry's cost that any fuel taxation hike could shunt the economy into recession. To which my answer is why not a Carbon VAT? A tax paid by the consumer but reclaimed by industry.

At least that would be fair to everybody. It would provide a level playing field. And it would undoubtedly reduce carbon consumption while encouraging people to switch to non-carbon or low carbon energy sources that weren't taxed. This would surely save more carbon than any number of symbolic headline gestures for reducing emissions per kilometre.

Anyway all this will now be put to bed for Christmas and the dossier only opened again in January under the auspices of the new Slovenian Presidency, the first from a ‘new' member state, just four years after joining the European Club. All eyes will be on Slovenia with Europe's good wishes following.

Eyes will also be watching for prospective turbulence in Kosovo and hoping for a peaceful resolution to the intractable problem of a prospective unilateral declaration of independence in the New Year. It may prove a baptism of Balkan fire for Ljubliana.

The author is editor of EuropaWorld