Do you want to make cars less polluting? Now's your chance

While congestion charging schemes to control CO2 emissions from traffic are proving controversial in London and elsewhere, there's a chance we might see some action in Brussels on this problem very soon.

Next week, there's an opportunity in the European Parliament for MEPs to debate new laws which could force car manufacturers to smarten up their fleets so that less CO2 is pumped out in the first place. Our campaigners are in agreement with many other organisations - including Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the Alliance against Urban 4x4s - and think the maximum emissions a car should produce is 120g of CO2 per km, shrinking to just 80g by 2020. The car industry obviously has other ideas - it's been procrastinating over voluntary emissions caps for years and has also been lobbying to water the bill down.

The debate starts on Monday but there's still a chance for you to influence the outcome. FoE and the 4x4 crowd are asking everyone to write to their MEPs, asking them to push for emission standards which are designed with preventing climate change in mind, and not allow car manufacturers to coat themselves in yet another coat of greenwash.