France: Best environmental badge now also possible for trucks

Each country has its own methods for labelling cars that emit a lot of pollutants. In some countries it is enough to register the car's number plate, in others an environmental badge is required. In France, you need the Certificat qualité de l'Air sticker, of which there are 6 in total. The cleanest sticker is green and has no number at all: it is intended for hydrogen and electric vehicles. The grey number 5 is intended for diesel vehicles registered up to January 2001 and indicates the cars with the highest pollutant emissions, apart of course from those even older vehicles that do not even qualify for sticker 5 and do not get a sticker. 
The purple sticker number 1, on the other hand, is only for the most modern and cleanest vehicles with internal combustion engines. It is intended for all petrol-driven and other vehicles that meet the Euro 5 and Euro 6 standards. These Euro standards apply to vehicles registered after 31 December 2010. Sticker 1 also applies to gas vehicles and plug-in hybrids, but not to diesel vehicles. There are now new exceptions for diesel vehicles that only fill up with B100 biodiesel and can prove this. The basis for this is a decree by the French president that allows B100 trucks to enter any existing French environmental zone with a sticker 1.  
Biodiesel is non-toxic, biodegradable and poses no danger to our drinking water. While E85 is a mixture of conventional fuel and ethanol, B100 uses 100 percent plant sources. This fuel is compatible with many diesel engines and offers a similar range to diesel. To achieve this, these substances are chemically treated with methanol or ethanol so that they can be used as fuel. In chemistry, the process is called transesterification. Besides the advantage that it can be produced entirely in France, the eco-diesel B100 has above all ecological qualities: greenhouse gases are emitted 60 per cent less, particulate matter up to 80 per cent less.
But many people do not see biodiesel as the saviour it appears to be. The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (Ifeu) has calculated that biofuels from plants are more harmful to the climate than fuels from fossil sources. If cultivated areas were actively renatured, German emissions would be about 16.5 million tonnes lower per year thanks to the plant life that develops there. This is because vegetation binds a large part of the emissions. It would be even better for the climate if the areas were cultivated with solar plants or windmills: According to Ifeu, generating energy for an electric car requires 97 per cent less land than for the same output from plants.