85. The Chair of GRPE reported on the results of the eighty-sixth session of GRPE (for details, see the report in ECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRPE/86).

86. GRPE endorsed proposals for new supplements to UN Regulations Nos. 24 (Visible pollutants, measurement of power of C.I. engines (Diesel smoke)), and 83 (Emissions of M1 and N1 vehicles).

87. Following the successful workshop held during the GRPE week on 31 May, GRPE agreed to add Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) to its list of priorities and to establish an Informal Working Group on the topic.

88. The Chair of GRPE also announced the release of a circular mobility podcast where GRPE contributed.

89. The representatives of Australia, Japan and the European Union requested to keep the possibility for virtual component of GRPE meetings in 2023, to allow for potential uncertainties linked with the still unstable sanitary situation.

90. The representative of the Republic of Korea, Director-General at MOLIT, stated climate change was one of the most important issues for which the world should work together, so the governments across the globe could come up with environmentally friendly policies. He added that Korea was also making efforts in various aspects to become carbon neutral, such as supporting the deployment of electric and hydrogen vehicles.

91. He also said that as part of the effort, Korea was driving hard the development of LCA, in particular to assess the greenhouse gas emission from cars throughout their lifetime, adding that Korea was going to develop Green NCAP, a system that could assess the comprehensive environmental function of vehicles, including LCA, energy efficiency and indoor air quality assessment. To this end, he confirmed, a mid-to long-term research and development project would be funded and carried out by the government, with expertise from industry, academia, and research institutes to be brought together to build an objective and reliable assessment system for environmental functions of vehicles.

92. He concluded by stating that in line with that, Korea proposed to form an informal working group at the GRPE meeting, and that a workshop was held in May 2022. He expressed his gratitude to Japan to bring this issue forward and for the fruitful collaboration on the topic. He also said that as Korea was bringing together national expertise to develop LCA, Korea would like to play an active role if the IWG was organized. He finally thanked WP.29 for its interest and support.

93. The representative from Japan thanked the Chair of GRPE for the oral report and for the organization of the GRPE workshop on LCA, leading to the inclusion of LCA in the GRPE list of priorities and the initiation of an IWG on LCA. He stated that global action was necessary to achieve decarbonization and that harmonized LCA methodologies would greatly contribute to achieving this. He expressed his gratitude to the delegations from the Republic of Korea for its initiative to LCA-IWG and to the delegation from the European Commission, United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland for the support to initiate LCA in GRPE.91. He announced that the first session of the IWG on LCA would be hosted by Japan, tentatively from 26 to 28 October 2022 through a hybrid meeting, confirming further information would be shared before the summer after consultation with the GRPE Chair and secretariat.

94. The representative from SAE International highlighted the potential role of standard development organizations that had been active in the development of motor vehicle’s LCA methodologies and confirmed interest to present thoughts for deliberation by contracting parties.

95. The representative from the United States of America informed WP.29 about their latest proposed rule release on heavy duty pollutant and greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions (GRPE-86-33), highlighting the importance of activities held in GRPE, such as those in the IWG on heavy duty hybrid and electric vehicle and the environment, that fed the development process of the proposed rule, to be finalized by the end of 2022.

96. WP. 29 noted that GRPE had agreed to start a new IWG on LCA and to revise terms of references and rules of procedure for the IWG on EPPR and extended its mandate until January 2023.

97. WP.29 noted that GRPE had re-elected Mr A. Rijnders (The Netherlands) as Chair and Mr D. Kay (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) as Vice-Chair for the GRPE sessions scheduled for 2023.

98. The GRPE Chair thanked all for their positive feedback from WP.29 and highlighted that GRPE was expected to need more expertise to tackle the difficult but very important LCA topic. He also reminded WP.29 of the call from GRPE for information about the inclusion of the topic related to liquified hydrogen in WP.29 instruments. The Chair invited WP.29 to reconsider this topic during AC.3 when updates were shared on the activities of the IWG on Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (HFCV).