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Car makers face EU crackdown on air conditioners

By Robin Pomeroy

BRUSSELS, June 23 (Reuters) - Automakers will have to redesign the way they cool their cars under new European Union rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle air conditioners, the EU car sector body said on Monday.

The air conditioning proposal is the latest in a string of environmental curbs the European Commission has imposed on the car industry which include tough rules on recycling scrap vehicles and continuously increasing fuel efficiency.

Now the Commission, the EU's legislation drafting arm, has its sights on air conditioners which it says negate some of the benefits of cars' reduced fuel needs and are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for causing global warming.

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said air conditioners increase emissions for two reasons: they reduce cars' fuel efficiency and the chemical coolant can escape into the atmosphere where it is a very potent greenhouse gas.

ACEA says carmakers' improved fuel efficiency will reduce cars' annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by between 80 and 100 million tonnes in the EU in 2008, but air conditioners, increasingly popular in Europe even in small cars, will add about 30 million tonnes.

"Manufacturers ... have recognised that especially HFC (hydrofluorocarbons) emissions from mobile air conditioning systems could undermine the efforts spent to reduce CO2 emissions from cars," ACEA said in a recent policy paper.

GENTLE TOUCH

Industry is lobbying for a gentle touch from the Commission's proposals, due before or just after the EU's August holiday, and hopes to avoid a ban on R-134a, the main car air conditioning coolant which has a greenhouse gas potential 1,500 times that of CO2.

ACEA's environmental policy director Hans-Martin Lent-Philipps said a brusque ban would be counter-productive.

"No one would invest in existing systems. There would be no improvement of conventional systems," he told Reuters.

Instead, industry should be given time to develop alternative coolant systems, which are available but more expensive. In the meantime, car makers and the servicing and scrapping sectors should work to reduce HFC leakage from air conditioners.

The car sector's next major challenge from Brussels will be a review at the end of the year of its progress in meeting the fuel efficiency improvements it promised in 1998.

Carmakers from the EU, including the U.S. firms based there, Japan and Korea all promised to reduce average CO2 emissions from their vehicles by around 25 percent by 2008. The Commission may want toughen that target for a later date.