Berlin (AFP) – German ministers presented a plan Tuesday to reduce levels of harmful diesel emissions in the country’s most-polluted cities, but were immediately slammed by environmentalists for failing to do enough to protect public health.
While there is concrete extra spending and rule changes in the package, ministers have left it up to manufacturers and individual drivers to refit older, more-polluting private cars, or replace them with the help of trade-in bonuses funded by industry.
“We’ve agreed a very big step to create clarity on things that are important to us: avoiding driving bans, preventing limitations to mobility, no additional or unjustified costs for diesel drivers, and responsibility from the car industry,” Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer told reporters in Berlin.
The federal government will cover 80 percent of the costs to most-polluted local authorities for refitting heavy vehicles like rubbish trucks with upgraded exhaust treatment systems.
And it will also foot 80 percent of the bill for similar upgrades to tradesmen’s vehicles and delivery vans and trucks in the worst affected areas.
Those two measures alone were “sufficient to avoid exceeding thresholds without driving restrictions” in cities where harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) does not already exceed 50 milligrammes per cubic metre, Scheuer and Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said in a joint paper.
Meanwhile the government will define an emissions limit for older vehicles that should allow them to continue driving in the 14 most polluted cities even if exclusion zones are enacted.
However, it will be up to drivers living or working in those towns whether they take up offers from car manufacturers for a bonus worth thousands of euros when they trade in their old diesels for newer models.
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are offering between 4,000 and 8,000 euros ($4,630 to $9,260) to owners looking to trade in their vehicles for the latest models.
And the industry continues to drag its feet on fitting more effective exhaust systems on cars belonging to people who decline or can’t afford to trade in.
So far only Volkswagen has made a concrete offer on refits, leaving drivers of BMW and Daimler’s Mercedes cars in the dark over their options.
– ‘Opportunity to regain trust’ –
“I’m very convinced that the car industry will use the opportunity we’re offering to win back trust in diesel” after years of scandal, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said.
But Scheuer admitted that even if companies stump up, “of course the trade-in or refit measures are voluntary, we can’t oblige people to do anything, it’s the customer’s choice”.
Environmentalist group Greenpeace condemned the hard-fought compromise between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and their junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).
Without obligatory refits, “manufacturers continue to attempt to turn their emissions fraud into a sales bonanza for new cars,” the group charged.
Three years have passed since Volkswagen’s 2015 admission to installing cheating devices in 11 million vehicles worldwide, allowing them to secretly spew far more NOx than legally permitted.
Since then, other carmakers like BMW and Daimler have been targeted in official probes and forced to recall thousands of vehicles.
In Germany industry has so far got off lightly, only updating engine control software on many of the affected vehicles.
That has riled consumer advocates and environmentalists alike, who note that much of Volkswagen’s so far 27-billion-euro bill over the scandal stems from fixes and buybacks in the United States.
– Pressure on all sides –
But while some 70 German cities recorded levels of NOx — which can cause respiratory illnesses and heart problems — above EU thresholds in 2017, according to the Federal Environment Agency, politicians face competing pressures.
On the one hand activists urge them to use bans and other harsh measures to prevent thousands of premature deaths the fumes are estimated to cause each year.
On the other, diesel drivers are anxious not to see their vehicles’ value tumble.
And car industry chiefs say they can’t afford to divert funds to costly refits to millions of vehicles, as they look to invest in staying competitive with challengers from the US and China.
With the sector’s more than 800,000 jobs weighing on their minds, many in Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance share car executives’ preference for selling millions of new cars to replace more polluting older models.
“The fastest and best way for the environment is to replace the old fleet with a new one,” the chancellor said Thursday.
And as tighter limits on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) biting in the EU from 2021, manufacturers are eager to get as many of their newest, cleanest cars on the road as possible.