An SUV at a dealership in the United States, February 13, 2020. -

Gene J. Puskar / AP / SIPA

SUVs are once again in the sights of environmentalists.

Their rapid growth in the vehicle fleet is, according to them, “incompatible” with the respect of French commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The WWF therefore called on the government on Tuesday to take measures to redirect the market.

Heavy and greedy vehicles

Sales of this type of car increased from 5% of the new vehicle market in 2008 to 38% in 2019. But, as they are heavier and therefore require more fuel, they have become “the second source of increased emissions of GHG energy in France from 2008 to 2018, just behind the aviation sector, ”points out the NGO in a report denouncing“ the crushing impact of SUVs on the climate ”.

The private car represents 16% of French emissions.

However, SUVs emit "on average 20% more GHGs than the rest of cars" and "the 4.3 million sold in France in a decade have a carbon footprint equivalent to 25 million electric city cars", according to WWF.

As a result, ecological penalty-type devices "no longer succeed in reducing the emissions of the vehicle fleet" and after a continuous decline from 2009 to 2016, the average CO2 emissions approved for new vehicles no longer decrease.

The reason for this is the growing size of vehicles, the average weight of which has increased by 14% in 10 years and the average power by 21% for gasoline vehicles.

Electrification, a bad idea

Above all, this development is "incompatible with the achievement of the climate objectives which France has adopted for 2030".

To corroborate its assertions, the NGO models several scenarios.

Continuing the current trend would see SUVs account for two-thirds of sales in 2030, with related emissions doubling.

But even the gradual electrification of the rest of the park would not on its own make it possible to achieve the objectives of the national low carbon strategy.

Limiting SUVs linked to electrification would make it possible to achieve these objectives.

Added to a "policy of sobriety" (development of alternative mobility and public transport), this modification of the fleet would "halve emissions by 2030".

The NGO also qualifies the possible development of electric SUVs as a “false good solution”, because their carbon footprint is “over the entire life cycle, 34% greater than that of electric city cars”.

A new tax system

The main solution is therefore to reform automobile taxation.

Thus, the weight of vehicles can be taken into account, as recommended in particular by the Citizen's Climate Convention, which the government has excluded from the budget.

And aid to manufacturers should be directed towards cars "lighter and less damaging to the climate".

For Pierre Cannet, advocacy director of WWF-France: “it's a systemic issue, the challenge is to reorient the market.

The recovery plan is now, it is not in 2025 that we will rewind ”.

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