23-03-06
The EU must wean its transport sector off oil entirely within a generation,
the European parliament's environment committee said. In a non-legislative
resolution on the European commission's energy efficiency green paper MEPs said
the move was essential to ensure the EU becomes the world's most energy
efficient economic block by 2020.
"The EU's energy strategy should concentrate initially on the total substitution
of fossil fuel use in the transport sector by 2030," says the resolution.
The demand will be forwarded to the parliament's energy committee, which is
coordinating the assembly's position on the green paper, and then voted on by
its plenary session.
Among the measures proposed are "early introduction of an 'energy consumption
per km' label" giving consumers a more informed choice between modes of
transport. The committee also said the commission's target of a 20 % cut in
energy use by 2020 should be strengthened because high oil prices meant more
cost-effective potential for energy savings.
In other committee business, MEPs nodded through changes to import quotas for
HCFCs in the EU's ten newest member states, and voted their second reading
position on the proposed Inspire spatial information system. Both files now go
for a plenary vote.
Meanwhile at a plenary session, the full parliament urged EU heads of government
gathering in Brussels for their spring summit to redouble efforts to meet
existing renewable energy generation targets and to set "ambitious" follow-on
targets once they expire in 2010.
Source: Environmental Data Service