European Emission Standards - Toxic Emission: Stages and Legal Framework

Toxic Emission: Stages and Legal Framework

The stages are typically referred to as Euro 1, Euro 2, Euro 3, Euro 4 and Euro 5 for Light Duty Vehicle standards. The corresponding series of standards for Heavy Duty Vehicles use Roman, rather than Arabic numerals (Euro I, Euro II, etc.)

The legal framework consists in a series of directives, each amendments to the 1970 Directive 70/220/EEC. The following is a summary list of the standards, when they come into force, what they apply to, and which EU directives provide the definition of the standard.

  • Euro 1 (1993):
    • For passenger cars - 91/441/EEC.
    • Also for passenger cars and light trucks - 93/59/EEC.
  • Euro 2 (1996) for passenger cars - 94/12/EC (& 96/69/EC)
    • For motorcycle - 2002/51/EC (row A) - 2006/120/EC
  • Euro 3 (2000) for any vehicle - 98/69/EC
    • For motorcycle - 2002/51/EC (row B) - 2006/120/EC
  • Euro 4 (2005) for any vehicle - 98/69/EC (& 2002/80/EC)
  • Euro 5 (2008/9) and Euro 6 (2014) for light passenger and commercial vehicles - 715/2007/EC

These limits supersede the original directive on emission limits 70/220/EEC.

The classifications for vehicle category are defined by:

  • Commission Directive 2001/116/EC of 20 December 2001, adapting to technical progress Council Directive 70/156/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers
  • Directive 2002/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 March 2002 relating to the type-approval of two or three-wheeled motor vehicles and repealing Council Directive 92/61/EEC

In the area of fuels, the 2001 Biofuels Directive requires that 5.75% of all transport fossil fuels (petrol and diesel) should be replaced by biofuels by 31 December 2010, with an intermediate target of 2% by the end of 2005. However, MEPs have since voted to lower this target in the wake of new scientific evidence about the sustainability of biofuels and the impact on food prices. In a vote in Strasbourg, the European parliament’s environment committee supported a plan to curb the EU target for renewable sources in transport to 4% by 2015. They also said that a thorough review would be required in 2015 before the EU could progress to an 8-10% mark by 2020.

Read more about this topic:  European Emission Standards

Famous quotes containing the words toxic, stages, legal and/or framework:

    America today is capable of terrific intolerance about smoking, or toxic waste that threatens trout. But only a deeply confused society is more concerned about protecting lungs than minds, trout than black women.
    Garry Wills (b. 1934)

    America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.
    Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)

    In ‘70 he married again, and I having, voluntarily, assumed the legal guilt of breaking my marriage contract, do cheerfully accept the legal penalty—a life of celibacy—bringing no charge against him who was my husband, save that he was not much better than the average man.
    Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)

    Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.
    bell hooks (b. c. 1955)