Volkswagen: Painful Lessons [PDF version]
The extraordinary revelations about Volkswagen’s prolonged use of technical measures to evade emission standards, covering not only NOx from diesel engines but CO2 as well, demonstrates how easy it has been to deceive both governments and customers. It is clearly right that the company will pay a price for this, both in the market and in the form of fines. But it is also a wake-up call for environmental policy in the EU.
In the first place, regulations, particularly those of such importance, need to be applied systematically with adequate monitoring, transparency, testing and evaluation. There are many environmental policy fields where these components have not received sufficient attention in the EU. In this case, the warning signs were plain to see; measurements of actual air quality were difficult to reconcile with the expected emissions from vehicles. There was clear cause for concern but years passed before the problem was exposed in the US, where diesel cars are a relatively small share of the market and where commercial interests were less threatened. The fact that the problem only came to light through the actions of US regulators is a painful lesson in itself.
Secondly, the era of more systematic failures in declaring and controlling vehicle emissions needs to be brought to an end. For years a grouping of car manufactures and sympathetic governments in Europe has managed to prevent the introduction of a “real world” test cycle which would measure actual emissions of new vehicles in realistic driving conditions, rather than the present artificial cycle giving rise to misleading data. It is difficult to imagine restoring the trust of consumers, or policy makers, including cities grappling to devise robust plans to improve air quality, without a decisive change in the test cycle and the transparency of reporting. Many authorities will now be forced to review existing plans and increase expenditure in the light of revised and more accurate projections of emissions.
Thirdly, air quality needs to be recognised as a central theme in the environmental agenda of the next decade, to be approached in a fresh light alongside the mitigation of climate change. While realism about what can be achieved is necessary, it is evident that there is a major gap between the objectives of the Ambient Air Quality Directive and what is being experienced in practice. Thinking outside the box, for example about the pace of change in the vehicle fleet and the role of diesels, and the potential for changes in the way we own and use cars, is essential. Futuristic cars have had a field day in the media after the revelations, but neither electric or hydrogen fuelled vehicles will displace a large share of the conventional fleet without a step change in existing trends.
The EU has a good track record in developing visionary policies, such as the Water Framework Directive, but has considerably further to go in building a culture of implementation and compliance. If any episode could demonstrate this to European society as a whole, it is perhaps the Volkswagen story.