Europe's green progress: electric cars save 20 million tons of CO2!

Europe's green progress: electric cars save 20 million tons of CO2!

Europa, Europäische Union - Europe faces a remarkable breakthrough in the fight against climate change! According to an analysis of Transport & Environment (T&E), the introduction of electric vehicles in 2025 will result in the continent saving around 20 million tons of CO2. However, this considerable progress is counteracted by the continued increase in air traffic, warn experts from T&E. The current "State of European Transport" report shows that traffic emissions in Europe were 1.05 billion tons of CO2 in 2024 and thus reduced by 5 percent compared to 2019. This development is primarily thanks to the increasingly popular electric cars, of which almost nine million will probably be on the streets of Europe by the end of 2025. T&E emphasized: Without these vehicles, an additional 20 million tons of CO2 would get into the atmosphere, which corresponds to the emissions of seven coal-fired power plants, such as Oekonews reported.

challenges from air and shipping

Despite this positive news, Europe remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, since around 96 percent of crude oil and 90 percent of the natural gas are imported. This dependence is tightened by the high emissions of air traffic: In 2024, European airlines exposed impressive 143 million tons of CO2, which corresponds to an increase of almost 10 percent compared to the previous year. In addition, the emissions of shipping with 195 million tons of CO2 equivalents are also at a high level. In order to counteract this, T&E expected income of 5 billion euros through the inclusion of shipping into the EU carbon market (ETS) to 2024, which are to be used to close the price gap between green e-fuel and conventional fuels.

The greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union are significant, as can be seen from the data of the Federal Environment Agency. In 2022, the EU-27 caused a total of approximately 3,375 million tons of greenhouse gases, with Germany, France, Italy and Poland made up over half of these emissions. Germany alone was responsible for more than 22 percent. These high numbers illustrate the challenge in front of Europe: In order to achieve the climate goals, emissions in all sectors must be reduced sustainably. The report also shows that the CO2 emissions made up for eighty percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions 2022, an alarm sign that cannot be ignored, such as Federal Environment Agency reported.