The climate impacts of feebate on cars in future scenarios

The ongoing EU FP7 project DYNAMIX aims to develop and assess dynamic policy mixes that achieve absolute decoupling between resource use and well-being. One of the policy instruments we assess is a feebate scheme for selected product categories. This instrument combines a fee for the environmentally worst products in the category and an economic incentive to choose the best products. France has such an instrument for cars. We modelled the carbon footprint of the future European car fleet with and without an effective, EU-wide feebate scheme. The calculations were carried through in the context of the different background scenarios developed in the DYNAMIX project. These scenarios are based on different assumptions on the future rate of innovation and the degree of materialism in the economy. In a materialistic society with a high rate of innovation, the feebate system is likely to affect the share of electric cars rather than the size of the car. In a non-materialistic society with a low rate of innovation, the feebate system is likely to affect mainly the size of the car. In a non-materialistic society with a high rate of innovation, the feebate system is likely to affect both the size and the technology of the car. Using different assumptions on the future European electricity system, the calculation results indicate that a shift to electric cars, or other technological improvements, is more important for the climate than a shift to smaller cars.