Yesterday I told you how the EU Council had come out fighting on the CO2 cars legislation with the position that Nicolas Sarkozy who has the presidency right now, wants to see adopted. It's also the German position supported by Angela Merkel.

But not everyone in the Council has thrown in the towel. The Netherlands are still in the ring, fighting their corner. They want to make sure the 2020 target sticks, making it a maximum of 95g per km, while the Merkozy position is to set something "close to" that amount. They're also fighting for a faster phase in, which they say will be a "will lead to a mild and gradual increase in effort from the industry, but without being too burdensome". That doesn't sound too painful, but compare that to the current Council position, where the industry won’t have to start making an effort until 2013, and that would be a punch in the face for the climate

But the Council is only one side of the story.

Weighing in against the Merkozy-dominated Council is the Commission, who drew up the original proposals. They called for strong targets of 120 g per km from 2012. They didn't think the car industry needed more time to comply, (and there is plenty of evidence that they're right) so they didn't ask for the targets to be phased in over 3 years. They also think that the car industry needs some penalties that would hit them in the pocket if they didn't make the targets, otherwise the carmakers could just pay over some small change for failing to hit the mark and save a whole wad of money by doing nothing to improve their CO2 emissions.

And lined up beside them but packing a stronger punch is the Parliament, with their recommendations from the Environment Committee. They agreed that the target could be reached by 2012 and, they said, the car industry could do even better. They weren't pulling any punches when they decided that if we were serious about tackling climate change, there should be a stronger target for 2020. By then, they reckoned the car industry should have been able to get down to 95g per km.

But even though the Commission and the Parliament are on the same side, the Council is the real heavyweight. So it’s time for the crowds to get on the side of the planet and cheer on the Commission and Parliament, to show that we support their strong position and we want tough action to reduce CO2 emissions in cars.

Let's hope for the sake of the planet that the Council doesn't get a knock out win by pushing through a proposal that no one except the car lobby really wants. Because that would leave the climate out for the count.