European Environmental Agency: report on vehicle emissions published

Despite improvements in vehicle efficiencies over past decades, EEA (European Environmental Agency) reports show that the road transport sector is responsible for almost one fifth of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions. It also contributes to high concentrations of air pollutants above EU standards in many of Europe’s cities. The new EEA report, ‘Explaining road transport emissions: a non-technical guide’, gives a simplified explanation of the often complex information available on road transport emissions as well as the technologies to reduce them.
Standardized measurements are made in laboratories to check that vehicles meet the official requirements for exhaust emissions. However, the official procedures currently used in Europe are not representative of real driving conditions. For certain pollutants, there is a significant difference between official emission measurements and vehicle performance on the road. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), a major air pollutant which harms health and the environment, can be more than seven times higher under real world driving conditions for new vehicles than in official tests. New vehicles similarly can emit up to 40 % more carbon dioxide (CO₂) than official measurements would indicate.

Source: eea
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