The EU transport plan published today sets out the first steps to boost green fuel production for planes and ships. Now the EU needs to follow through if it wants to retain its industrial leadership. Read our reaction to the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan ( #STIP ) 👇 bit.ly/43feRNx

We put a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) to the test under real-world city driving conditions — and the results didn’t match the promises made by manufacturers. Is it time to admit plug-in hybrids are nearly as bad for the climate as petrol cars? Watch the video 👇 youtu.be/574tag9Aj-M

LATEST: The Danish consumer ombudsman has reprimanded Finnish oil producer Neste for marketing its #biodiesel as sustainable. Until oil companies can provide full supply chain transparency of their #biofuel products, their fuels cannot be considered truly sustainable.

NEW: European fossil fuel companies made €180bn in profits in the EU in the two years following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU should tax these profits to reduce Europeans’ exposure to energy price spikes, or end fossil fuel subsidies. 🧵⤵️

Europeans want to see improvements to the rail booking process – especially young people aged 18 to 24. Booking train journeys is so difficult that it is putting people off of train travel altogether. It’s time the EU took the need to fix this problem seriously. See the results ➡️ bit.ly/3Ww78qA

NEW: Aviation taxes, charges and fees have a limited impact on passenger numbers. Instead, aviation demand is primarily driven by airline strategies and travel trends. But airlines claim national taxes, fees and charges to address the climate impact of aviation are driving passengers away. 🧵⤵️

You can book a flight in 30 seconds, but a long-distance cross-border rail journey? Better clear your afternoon. The hassle of booking tickets is putting Europeans off rail altogether. This must change if it is to be a real alternative for cross‑border travel. See the poll results ➡️ bit.ly/4hqpJOi

✈️ EASA’s first report on ReFuelEU is out, confirming the urgent need for EU action on e-fuels, taxation and air traffic growth. A 🧵 on our main takeaways from the report ⤵️

Europeans want train travel to be easier, but gaps in the current system are putting them off rail altogether. The upcoming #SingleTicketingPackage is the EU’s chance to finally improve long-distance rail. 🧵⤵️

EU vehicle safety regulations have supported a 36% reduction in European road deaths since 2010, while road deaths in the US over the same period increased 30%. Aligning EU standards with laxer US rules would undermine the EU’s global leadership in road safety. Read the letter 👇

Despite being among the most carbon-intensive modes of transport, aviation and shipping continue to enjoy generous VAT exemptions across Europe. This is costing governments billions in lost revenue and putting cleaner forms of passenger transport at a competitive disadvantage. 🧵⤵️

Plug-in hybrids perform much worse in the real world than their ‘official’ testing suggests. This means more fuel burned, higher costs and more CO2. The EU cannot weaken its car CO2 rules to allow space for these expensive, polluting cars. Explore our analysis 👉 bit.ly/4oeXK6u

Three sad facts that shouldn’t be like this: • Transport is one of the EU’s biggest sources of CO2 • Aviation emissions are still rising fastest • Young people often fly instead of taking the train because it’s cheaper and easier Yet travelling by train is five times cleaner than flying

NEW: Plug-in hybrids pollute almost as much as petrol cars, new data shows. Yet EU carmakers are pressuring lawmakers to treat these cars as clean under the guise of ‘technology neutrality’. 🧵⤵️

Driving just 100 km with a car using biofuels would require close to 3,000 litres of water due to the huge amount of water they require. It would only take about 20 litres to produce solar electricity to drive an EV that same distance. Our report on the massive impact of biofuels 👉 bit.ly/4h1M5W9

Electric car sales in the EU are up by almost a quarter so far this year! The bloc's car CO2 targets are continuing to drive EV take-up – as carmakers respond by bringing more affordable models to market. Now is not the time to weaken the targets further. 🧵⤵️

Demand for biofuels is putting a huge strain on global land use. Today growing crops to be burned as fuel uses up to 32 mn hectares of land to meet just 4% of global transport energy demand. That is set to grow to 52 mn by 2030. Our report on the global implications of biofuels 👉 bit.ly/4h1M5W9

NEW: Biofuels globally emit more than the fossil fuels they replace, our latest study shows. The first-of-a-kind study looks at global biofuels production today and the potential impacts of government biofuel targets. 🧵⤵️

LEAK: Car industry demands would cut EV sales in half & turn Europe’s car regulation into ‘Swiss cheese – full of holes’, according to T&E analysis of a leaked industry position paper. This position will completely undermine the investment certainty needed for Europe to catch up in the EV race. 🧵

🚛 The Netherlands is seeing a major shift in urban freight thanks to zero-emission zones for freight in 18 of its cities. By early 2025, 78% of new vans were electric -- compared to just 9% across the EU. 📑 New @cleancitiescampaign.org briefing: bit.ly/431I7al

🛫 The European Investment Bank (@eib.org) published on Friday its new #ClimateBank Roadmap Phase 2. The EIB’s decision to maintain the ban on funding for airport expansion is key. However, this ban should also be enforced with no backdoor financing. 🧵⤵️

✈️ NEW: Spain could raise up to €2.8 billion extra for sustainable aviation by matching the taxes other Europeans put on airline tickets with simply a small surcharge per ticket. 🧵⤵️

Mercedes-Benz and others want to overturn the EU’s 2035 ban on petrol cars. This would be as disastrous for jobs as for the climate. "Car manufacturers are already letting people go... Continuing to make combustion-engine models would not staunch job losses in the long run." bit.ly/42KvmRq

10 years after carmakers were caught cheating, the next Dieselgate scandal will be legal. Are PHEVs the new defeat device? 🧵⤵️

Today T&E joined @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu for a dialogue on the future of the EU auto industry. While the industry is pushing to open up the CO2 standards, the EU's top priority must be to keep a clear investment signal. Read the debrief from our Executive Director 👉 bit.ly/4nztWRX

“𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆” - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶 𝗖𝗘𝗢 As EU Commission President Von der Leyen debates the future of the 2035 cars CO2 Regulation with auto execs, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner criticised industry efforts to undermine the auto sector's transition to electric. bit.ly/42q7Bhe

As the car industry prepares to meet with @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu tomorrow, new data shows that plug-in hybrids emit far more than their official ratings indicate. PHEVs should not qualify as low-emission in order to reach EU climate targets, despite automaker lobbying efforts.

The EU is weak on passenger rights for rail travel, and it is directly impacting European’s pocketbooks 🎫💸 Europe needs urgent reform of the ticketing for its rail network if it hopes to make trains a reliable means of transport. 🧵

The future of cars is electric and Europe should be a part of it, says Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. 🧵⤵️

NEW: Plug-in hybrids now emit five times, on average, what official tests claim, and the gap between real-world emissions and test results continues to grow. 🧵

Mercedes-Benz, the head of the EU auto lobby, is the loudest critic of EU emissions targets while being the only one that wouldn’t reach them on their own. All other EU carmakers are on track, but there is still pressure to weaken the targets, which would see Europe fall behind on electrification.

The world is going electric, with or without us⚡️ EV sales are booming worldwide, from China to emerging markets like Vietnam and even here in Europe. But the car lobby is doing everything they can to weaken EU emission targets so they can continue to sell gas guzzlers. Learn more 👉 bit.ly/4lZDiVK

European carmakers are finally showing that they can also produce world-class EVs.  So why are they lobbying like crazy to slow down Europe’s transition to EVs and weaken the laws that underpin the transition? bit.ly/3HXKvI1

NEW: European carmakers sold 38% more electric cars in the first seven months of the year, ensuring that all but Mercedes-Benz are on track to comply with the EU’s 2025-37 emission targets. So why is the car industry launching an all-out attack on the EU’s car CO2 targets? 🧵⤵️

NEW: Volvo is leading the way on green chassis by focusing on cleaner steel made from renewable energy, surpassing its European competitors. 🧵

SUVs have gone from just 3% of cars in the UK to a whopping 30% in just two decades. We must reverse this "carspreading" trend to tackle the growing safety and pollution threat. That's why @cleancitiescampaign.org is calling for Paris-style parking charges in major UK cities 👇

While steel is easy to recycle, only a tiny portion of the steel in cars today is from recycling. But MEPs have the opportunity to change that with the upcoming vote on the end-of-life vehicles law. 🧵⤵️

⚖️Are countries legally on the hook for including non-CO2 emissions from aviation in their climate plans? A legal analysis conducted at the request of T&E and @opportunitygreen.org says YES. But not one country has done this so far. 🧵⤵️ bit.ly/4oNflDB

Contrary to clear European Commission assurances, yesterday the US-EU trade pact declared an intent “to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards” for cars. This follows tariff reductions that will cut RAM pickup prices in Europe by an average of €6,000. 🧵

Across 142 routes in Europe, trains are on average twice as expensive as flights On some routes, they are 26 times the price Low-cost airlines profit from unfair tax exemptions, but trains are burdened with VAT, energy taxes and high track fees Governments and the EU must stop rewarding polluters

Carmakers are putting the EU auto industry at risk by lobbying against the EV transition. A report from @delorsberlin.bsky.social shows that not only will the pushback against the 2035 target not save the industry, but these efforts are putting Europe at a global disadvantage. 🧵⤵️ bit.ly/45ql0rM

🤔What are those white lines in the sky? Contrails from the condensation of water vapour from a plane warm the planet at least as much as the CO2 emitted by the aircraft Check out our explainer about contrails and how rerouting flights to avoid them would be an easy climate win. 👇 bit.ly/41VidDX

A record number of electric cars were registered in western Europe this spring thanks to more affordable models entering the market. But sales of Chinese-made EVs are also on the rise. It is crucial that EU carmakers focus on staying competitive, not weakening the car CO2 targets. bit.ly/470UYwv

What happens to ticket prices when a new competitor enters onto the scene of a well-established route? 🎫💸 Italian researchers Milan explored this question by analysing the impact on rail ticket prices after Italo introduced services to compete with Trenitalia between Turin and Venice in 2018. 🧵⤵️

Today @lemonde.fr says what T&E has been arguing for years: the EU 2035 zero-emission cars target must stay if European carmakers are to compete with their Chinese rivals. 🧵⤵️ bit.ly/4motsNP @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu @wopkehoekstra.ec.europa.eu

Europe’s rail network is improving, if you know where to look. There is still work to be done to make train travel accessible to all, but sometimes progress comes from a collection of small wins. We’re looking at 3 small changes that will have an immediate impact on how Europeans travel by train 🧵

Europe’s rail network is improving, if you know where to look. There is still work to be done to make train travel accessible to all, but sometimes progress comes from a collection of small wins. We’re looking at 3 small changes that will have an immediate impact on how Europeans travel by train 🧵

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has just approved a €500 million loan for Eni's new biorefinery in Livorno. For the self-declared ‘EU climate bank’ this is a very questionable use of public money. 🧵⤵️

The EU fleets law is the demand instrument that carmakers have been asking for. Why are they focused on tearing it down rather than pushing for tax reforms to support it? 🧵

ETS2, a new carbon price on fossil fuels, is coming in 2027. It is expected to raise €300 bn, which can be spent making more green alternatives more affordable. But as it will make petrol more expensive, European govs need to put in place strategies to support everyday Europeans in the transition.