Italian minister slams EU bill on abandoning CO2 emitting cars

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
16 Feb 2023 22:31

The Italian minister chastises the legislation, describing it as tying the European market to China's green technology.

A new electric BMW iX car of German car manufacturer BMW is charging in Munich, Germany, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021 (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

Adolfo Urso, Italy's Minister of Economic Development, slammed the European Union's decision to cut down the sale of automobiles with internal combustion engines by 2035 as short-sighted.

The European Parliament voted on and passed legislation on Tuesday requiring new passenger cars and small commercial vehicles in the European Union to be environment-friendly aiming to minimize CO2 by 2035 as part of the bloc's battle against climate change. The consequential significance of this legislation is that it will remove all cars with internal combustion engines from the EU market.

"The ban on diesel and gasoline vehicles from 2035, approved by the European Parliament, is the result of a myopic and still ideological vision that ignores reality," Urso told La Stampa.

The Italian minister chastised the legislation describing it as tying the European market to China's green technology. He went on to say that he had expected the Ukranian crisis to demonstrate the dangers of depending on foreign industries, be it Russian fossil or Chinese green tech cars.

The car sector accounts for 20% of Italy's GDP and employs 260,000 people, according to Urso, who added that the bill should be delayed until 2026 with proper amendments to address faults and deficiencies.

Additionally, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of Italy has claimed that banning gasoline and diesel automobiles will harm Italian manufacturers and employees, as well as flood the market with Chinese cars.

Carbon dioxide levels 50% higher than pre-industrial era

Carbon Dioxide levels increase to become 50% higher than in the pre-industrial era. This, according to US government data, pushed the planet and will continue to do so in coming years into conditions that have not existed for millions of years.

Based on the data collected by scientists, the world may still delve into radical climate tragedies despite all efforts to curb carbon emissions. That is, in the best-case scenario, if governments manage to contain carbon emissions, the world will still be at risk of a roll-balling climate crisis.

Today, the world is far away from the best-case scenario since global governments continue to fail at decreasing planet-heating levels.

“It’s depressing that we’ve lacked the collective willpower to slow the relentless rise in CO2,” said Ralph Keeling, a geochemist for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Hawaii. “Fossil-fuel use may no longer be accelerating, but we are still racing at top speed towards a global catastrophe.”

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the Earth’s CO2 levels were about 280 ppm for almost 6,000 years. This provided a stable foundation for the advance of human civilization. Ever since then, people have released about 1.5tn tons of CO2. That would be enough to raise the temperatures of the world for years to come, potentially even hundreds of thousands of years to come.